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CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  STORIES  OF  H.   C.  BUNNER 


FIRST     SERIES 


THEN   OUT   OF   THE   DOOR  CAME   JACOB   DOLPH 


THE   STORIES 

OF 

H.  C.  BUNNER 


FIRST  SERIES 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 
BY 

BRANDER  MATTHEWS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1916 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 
Copyright,  1887,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNKR'S  SONS 

Copyright,  1915,  by 

A.  L.  BUNKER 


THE  MIDGE 

Copyright,  1886,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Copyright,  1914,  by 

A.  L.  BUNNEK 


JERSEY  STREET  AND  JERSEY  LANE 

Copyright,  1896,  by 
CHAKLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


To 
A.  L.  B. 


336813 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE ix 

THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE      .     .  1 

THE  MIDGE 106 

JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 324 

TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 342 

THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 361 

THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 378 

THE  LOST  CHILD 395 

A  LETTER  TO  TOWN  420 


INTEODUCTOEY  NOTE 

It  is  now  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  since 
the  most  of  the  stories  now  gathered  into  this  vol 
ume  were  first  published.  In  the  superabundant 
productivity  of  our  writers  of  fiction  the  compe 
tition  is  incessant  and  deadly.  Few,  indeed,  are 
the  novels  and  the  briefer  tales  which  can  hold 
their  own  even  for  a  decade,  and  fewer  yet  are 
those  which  have  to  be  brought  out  in  new  editions 
in  response  to  the  popular  demand  a  score  of  years 
after  their  author  has  let  the  pen  slip  from  his 
hand  for  the  last  time.  This  is  the  fortunate  fate 
which  has  now  befallen  the  short-stories  of  H.  C. 
Bunner. 

He  was  born  at  Oswego,  New  York,  on  August  3, 
1855,  and  he  died  at  Nutley,  New  Jersey,  on  May 
11, 1896,  cut  short  in  a  literary  career  wherein  he 
had  not  attained  to  his  full  power.  He  had  had  a 
thorough  schooling  and  prepared  for  Columbia  Col 
lege,  which  he  was  unable  to  enter — to  his  abiding 
regret.  After  a  brief  experience  in  an  importing 
house,  he  became  a  newspaper  man.  When  Puck 
began  to  be  published  in  English  he  joined  its  staff, 

ix 


x  INTEODUCTOEY  NOTE 

and  he  soon  became  its  editor,  a  post  which  he  held 
to  the  end  of  his  life.  Puck  was  the  earliest  to 
succeed  of  all  the  many  American  attempts  to 
establish  a  comic  weekly;  and  in  large  measure  its 
success  was  due  to  Bunner, — to  his  fertility,  to  his 
resourcefulness,  to  his  insight  and  to  his  unfailing 
taste. 

To  Puck  first  and  then  to  one  or  another  of  the 
leading  American  magazines  Bunner  began  to  con 
tribute  verse.  Most  of  his  poetry  is  to  be  classed 
as  vers  de  societe,  as  "familiar  verse,"  to  use  Cow- 
per's  apt  phrase.  These  lighter  lyrics  of  his  had 
the  brevity,  the  brilliancy  and  the  buoyancy  which 
are  the  specific  characteristics  of  this  kind  of 
verse.  They  had  humor  and  good  humor;  they 
often  had  restrained  pathos,  suggesting  the  tear 
which  hangs  unfailing  above  the  smile.  While  it 
is  by  his  vers  de  societe  that  Bunner  made  good 
his  place  among  our  lyrists,  he  was  able  to  prove 
himself  a  true  poet  by  verse  of  a  larger  purport. 

He  was  also  the  author  of  several  novels  and  of 
several  volumes  of  short-stories.  His  prose  was 
the  prose  of  a  poet,  pure  and  pellucid ;  his  style  had 
both  clarity  and  color.  He  became  a  master  of 
the  art  of  the  short-story,  finding  his  profit  in  a 
loving  study  of  Boccaccio  and  Maupassant.  Even 
those  of  his  longer  tales  which  stretch  out  almost 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE  xi 

to  the  dimensions  of  a  novel,  were  really  only 
short-stories  writ  large;  they  had  the  unity,  the 
swiftness,  the  singleness  of  purpose  which  is  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  this  form  of  fiction. 

No  selection  from  the  masterpieces  of  the  Amer 
ican  short-story  would  be  justified  that  was  not  en 
riched  by  at  least  one  example  of  Bunner's  art,  at 
once  firm  and  delicate.  It  would  matter  little 
whether  the  choice  fell  on  "Zadoc  Pine"  or  on 
"Love  in  Old  Cloathes,"  or  on  "As  One  Having 
Authority. "  Each  of  these  tales  has  its  own 
charm  and  its  own  fragrance;  all  of  them  are 
models  of  story-telling;  and  any  one  of  them  can 
withstand  comparison,  in  its  own  fashion,  with  the 
best  in  this  form  of  fiction,  with  any  example 
selected  from  Hawthorne  or  Poe,  Bret  Harte  or 
Cable.  They  are  novel  in  topic,  fresh  in  atmos 
phere,  individual  in  treatment  and  ingenious  in 
construction. 

All  Bunner's  short-stories  reveal  a  fertility  of 
invention  playfully  delighting  in  its  own  exercise. 
What  could  be  more  whimsically  adroit  and  auda 
cious  than  the  open  making-up  of  "A  Second- 
Hand  Story,"  before  the  eyes  of  the  reader,  so  to 
speak,  with  its  weaving  of  the  plot  out  of  whole 
cloth,  as  the  phrase  is.  Yet  invention  is  only  a 
minor  possession  for  the  writer  of  fiction  unless  it 


xii  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

is  sustained  by  the  larger  interpreting  imagina 
tion,  which  only  can  people  a  narrative  with 
human  beings,  vital  and  unforgettable  in  the  man 
ner  that  "  As  One  Having  Authority "  is  illumined 
with  the  towering  figure  of  the  venerable  bishop, 
projected  with  an  intimate  understanding  of 
human  nature. 

While  Bunner  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  Euro 
pean  masters  of  fiction  to  spy  out  the  secrets  of  the 
craft,  his  own  subjects  were  chosen  almost  without 
exception  from  the  life  of  his  own  country.  What 
could  be  more  intensely  American  than  the  narra 
tive  of  the  adventures  of  Zadoc  Pine,  with  its  per 
suasive  portrayal  of  the  man's  native  gumption, 
his  unvaunting  self-respect,  his  sturdy  kindliness  ? 
This  vision  of  unmitigated  and  essential  Ameri 
canism  is  set  before  us  in  a  tale  which  is  also  a 
tract,  if  we  choose  so  to  take  it, — a  tract  setting 
forth  the  stern  duty  of  self-help  and  of  resolute 
independence. 

Not  only  were  Bunner 's  studies  from  life 
sketched  from  our  own  life  here  in  America ;  many 
if  not  most  of  them,  were  also  studies  of  New 
York,  the  city  of  his  ancestors  and  of  his  own  abid 
ing  love — although  he  had  not  been  born  in  it,  nor 
was  he  to  die  in  it.  Thirty  years  ago  colonialism 
still  lingered  in  our  literature.  There  were  not  a 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE  xiii 

few  among  us  who  doubted  whether  this  sprawling 
metropolis  of  ours,  so  varied  in  its  aspects  and  so 
tumultuous  in  its  manifestations,  would  ever 
prove  to  be  a  fertile  field  for  fiction.  Here  Bunner 
was  truly  a  pioneer ;  he  drove  a  furrow  of  his  own 
in  soil  scarcely  even  scratched  before  he  tilled  it ; 
and  if  the  later  crop  is  to-day  more  abundant  this 
is,  in  some  measure,  at  least,  because  all  can  grow 
the  flower  now,  for  all  have  got  the  seed. 

BRANDER  MATTHEWS. 
March,  1916. 


THE  STORY 
OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 


ffT  HEAR,"  said  Mrs.  Abram  Van  Riper, 
seated  at  her  breakfast-table,  and  watch- 
ing  the  morning  sunlight  dance  on  the 
front  of  the  great  Burrell  house  on  the  opposite 
side  of  Pine  Street,  '  *  that  the  Dolphs  are  going  to 
build  a  prodigious  fine  house  out  of  town — some 
where  up  near  the  Rynders's  place. " 

"And  I  hear,"  said  Abram  Van  Riper,  laying 
down  last  night's  Evening  Post,  "that  Jacob 
Dolph  is  going  to  give  up  business.  And  if  he 
does,  it's  a  disgrace  to  the  town." 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1807,  and  Abram  Van 
Riper  was  getting  well  over  what  he  considered 
the  meridian  line  of  sixty  years.  He  was  hale  and 
hearty;  his  business  was  flourishing;  his  boy  was 
turning  out  all  that  should  have  been  expected  of 
one  of  the  Van  Riper  stock ;  the  refracted  sunlight 
from  the  walls  of  the  stately  house  occupied  by  the 
Cashier  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  lit  with 
a  subdued  secondary  glimmer  the  Van  Riper  silver 
on  the  breakfast-table — the  squat  teapot  and  slop- 
bowl,  the  milk-pitcher,  that  held  a  quart,  and  the 

1 


2  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

apostle-spoon  in  the  broken  loaf-sugar  on  the  Delft 
plate.  Abram  Van  Riper  was  decorously  happy, 
as  a  New  York  merchant  should  be.  In  all  other 
respects,  he  was  pleased  to  think,  he  was  what  a 
New  York  merchant  should  be,  and  the  word  of  the 
law  and  the  prophets  was  fulfilled  with  him  and  in 
his  house. 

"I'm  sure,"  Mrs.  Van  Riper  began  again,  some 
what  querulously,  "I  can't  see  why  Jacob  Dolph 
shouldn't  give  up  business,  if  he's  so  minded. 
He's  a  monstrous  fortune,  from  all  I  hear — a  good 
hundred  thousand  dollars." 

"A  hundred  thousand  dollars!"  repeated  her 
husband,  scornfully.  "Ay,  and  twice  twenty 
thousand  pounds  on  the  top  of  that.  He's  done 
well,  has  Dolph.  All  the  more  reason  he  should 
stick  to  his  trade ;  and  not  go  to  lolling  in  the  sun, 
like  a  runner  at  the  Custom-House  door.  He's 
not  within  ten  years  of  me,  and  here  he  must  build 
his  country  house,  and  set  up  for  the  fine  gentle 
man.  Jacob  Dolph !  Did  I  go  on  his  note,  when 
he  came  back  from  France,  brave  as  my  master,  in 
'94,  or  did  I  not?  And  where  'ud  he  have  raised 
twenty  thousand  in  this  town,  if  I  hadn  't  ?  What 's 
got  into  folks  nowadays  T  Damn  me  if  I  can  see ! " 

His  wife  protested  in  wifely  fashion.  "I'm 
sure,  Van  Riper,"  she  began,  "you've  no  need  to 
fly  in  such  a  huff  if  I  so  much  as  speak  of  folks  who 
have  some  conceit  of  being  genteel.  It's  only 
proper  pride  of  Mr.  Dolph  to  have  a  country 

house,  and "  (her  voice  faltering  a  little, 

timorously)  "ride  in  and — and  out ="- 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  3 

"Ridel"  snorted  Mr.  Van  Riper.  "In  a  car 
riage,  maybe?" 

"In  a  carriage,  Van  Eiper.  You  may  think  to 
ride  in  a  carriage  is  like  being  the  Pope  of  Rome ; 
but  there 's  some  that  knows  better.  And  if  you  'd 
set  up  your  carriage,"  went  on  the  undaunted 
Mrs.  Van  Riper,  "and  gone  over  to  Greenwich 
Street  two  years  ago,  as  I'd  have  had  you,  and 
made  yourself  friendly  with  those  people  there, 
I'd  have  been  on  the  Orphan  Asylum  Board  at  this 
very  minute;  and  you  would " 

Mr.  Van  Riper  knew  all  that  speech  by  heart,  in 
all  its  variations.  He  knew  perfectly  well  what 
it  would  end  in,  this  time,  although  he  was  not  a 
man  of  quick  perception:  "He  would  have  been 
a  member  of  the  new  Historical  Society." 

"Yes,"  he  thought  to  himself,  as  he  found  his 
hat  and  shuffled  out  into  Pine  Street;  "and  John 
Pintard  would  have  had  my  good  check  in  his 
pocket  for  his  tuppenny  society.  Pine  Street  is 
fine  enough  for  me." 

Mr.  Van  Riper  had  more  cause  for  his  petulancy 
than  he  would  have  acknowledged  even  to  himself. 
He  was  a  man  who  had  kept  his  shop  open  all 
through  Clinton's  occupancy  and  who  had  had  no 
trouble  with  the  British.  And  when  they  had 
gone  he  had  had  to  do  enough  to  clear  his  skirts  of 
any  smirch  of  Toryism,  and  to  implant  in  his  own 
breast  a  settled  feeling  of  militant  Americanism. 
He  did  not  like  it  that  the  order  of  things  should 
change — and  the  order  of  things  was  changing. 
The  town  was  growing  out  of  all  knowledge  of 


4  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

itself.  Here  they  had  their  Orphan  Asylum,  and 
their  Botanical  Garden,  and  their  Historical 
Society ;  and  the  Jews  were  having  it  all  their  own 
way ;  and  now  people  were  talking  of  free  schools, 
and  of  laying  out  a  map  for  the  upper  end  of  the 
town  to  grow  on,  in  the  "system"  of  straight 
streets  and  avenues.  To  the  devil  with  systems 
and  avenues !  said  he.  That  was  all  the  doing  of 
those  cursed  Frenchmen.  He  knew  how  it  would 
be  when  they  brought  their  plaguy  frigate  here 
in  the  first  fever  year — '93 — and  the  fools 
marched  up  from  Peck's  Slip  after  a  red  night 
cap,  and  howled  their  cut-throat  song  all  night 
long. 

It  began  to  hum  itself  in  his  head  as  he  walked 
toward  Water  Street — Qa  ira — ga  ira — les  aris 
tocrats  d  la  lanterne.  A  whiff  of  the  wind  that 
blew  through  Paris  streets  in  the  terrible  times 
had  come  across  the  Atlantic  and  tickled  his  dull 
old  Dutch  nostrils. 

But  something  worse  than  this  vexed  the  con 
servative  spirit  of  Abram  Van  Riper.  He  could 
forgive  John  Pintard — whose  inspiration,  I  think, 
foreran  the  twentieth  century — his  fancy  for  free 
schools  and  historical  societies,  as  he  had  forgiven 
him  for  his  sidewalk-building  fifteen  years  before; 
he  could  proudly  overlook  the  fact  that  the  women 
were  busying  themselves  with  all  manner  of  wild 
charities;  he  could  be  contented  though  he  knew 
that  the  Hebrew  Hart  was  president  of  that 
merchants'  club  at  Baker's,  of  which  he  himself 
would  fain  have  been  a  member.  But  there  was 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  5 

something  in  the  air  that  he  could  neither  forgive 
nor  overlook,  nor  be  contented  with. 

There  was  a  change  coming  over  the  town — a 
change  which  he  could  not  clearly  define,  even  in 
his  own  mind.  There  was  a  great  keeping  of 
carriages,  he  knew.  A  dozen  men  had  bought 
carriages,  or  were  likely  to  buy  them  at  any  time. 
The  women  were  forming  societies  for  the 
improvement  of  this  and  that.  And  he,  who  had 
moved  up-tow^n  from  Dock  Street,  was  now  in  an 
old-fashioned  quarter.  All  this  he  knew,  but  the 
something  which  made  him  uneasy  was  more 
subtile. 

Within  the  last  few  years  he  had  observed  an 
introduction  of  certain  strange  distinctions  in  the 
social  code  of  the  town.  It  had  been  vaguely 
intimated  to  him — perhaps  by  his  wife,  he  could 
not  remember — that  there  was  a  difference 
between  his  trade  and  Jacob  Dolph 's  trade.  He 
was  a  ship-chandler.  Jacob  Dolph  sold  timber. 
Their  shops  were  side  by  side;  Jacob  Dolph 's 
rafts  lay  in  the  river  in  front  of  Abram  Van 
Riper  ?s  shop,  and  Abram  Van  Riper  had  gone  on 
Jacob  Dolph  ?s  note,  only  a  few  years  ago.  Yet,  it 
seemed  that  it  was  genteel  of  Jacob  Dolph  to  sell 
timber,  and  it  was  not  genteel  of  Abram  Van 
Riper  to  be  a  ship-chandler.  There  was,  then,  a 
difference  between  Jacob  Dolph  and  Abram  Van 
Riper — a  difference  which,  in  forty  years,  Abram 
Van  Riper  had  never  conceived  of.  There  were 
folks  who  held  thus.  For  himself,  he  could  not 
understand  it.  What  difference  there  was 


6  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

between  selling  the  wood  to  make  a  ship,  and 
selling  the  stores  to  go  inside  of  her,  he  could  not 
understand. 

The  town  was  changing  for  the  worse ;  he  saw 
that.  He  did  not  wish — God  forbid! — that  his 
son  John  should  go  running  about  to  pleasure- 
gardens.  But  it  would  be  no  more  than  neigh 
borly  if  these  young  bucks  wrho  went  out  every 
night  should  ask  him  to  go  with  them.  Were 
William  Irving 's  boys  and  Harry  Brevoort  and 
those  young  Kembles  too  fine  to  be  friends  with 
his  boy?  Not  that  he'd  go  with  them  a-rollicking 
— no,  not  that — but  'twould  be  neighborly.  It  was 
all  wrong,  he  thought;  they  were  going  whither 
they  knew  not,  and  wherefore  they  knew  not ;  and 
with  that  he  cursed  their  airs  and  their  graces, 
and  pounded  down  to  the  Tontine,  to  put  his  name 
at  the  head  of  the  list  of  those  who  subscribed  for 
a  testimonial  service  of  plate,  to  be  presented  to 
our  esteemed  fellow-citizen  and  valued  associate, 
Jacob  Dolph,  on  his  retirement  from  active 
business. 

Jacob  Dolph  at  this  moment  was  setting  forth 
from  his  house  in  State  Street,  whose  pillared 
balcony,  rising  from  the  second  floor  to  the  roof, 
caught  a  side  glance  of  the  morning  sun,  that 
loved  the  Battery  far  better  than  Pine  Street. 
He  had  his  little  boy  by  the  hand — young  Jacob, 
his  miniature,  his  heir,  and  the  last  and  only  living 
one  of  his  eight  children.  Mr.  Dolph  walked  with 
his  stock  thrust  out  and  the  lower  end  of  his 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  7 

waistcoat  drawn  in — he  was  Colonel  Dolph,  if  he 
had  cared  to  keep  the  title;  and  had  come  back 
from  Monmouth  with  a  hole  in  his  hip  that  gave 
him  a  bit  of  a  limp,  even  now  in  eighteen-hundred- 
and-seven.  He  and  the  boy  marched  forth  like  an 
army  with  a  small  but  enthusiastic  left  wing,  into 
the  poplar-studded  Battery.  The  wind  blew 
fresh  off  the  bay;  the  waves  beat  up  against  the 
sea-wall,  and  swirled  with  a  chuckle  under  Castle 
Garden  bridge.  A  large  brig  was  coming  up 
before  the  wind,  all  her  sails  set,  as  though  she 
were  afraid — and  she  was — of  British  frigates 
outside  the  Hook.  Two  or  three  fat  little  boats, 
cat-rigged,  after  the  good  old  New  York  fashion, 
were  beating  down  toward  Staten  Island,  to  hunt 
for  the  earliest  blue-fish. 

The  two  Dolphs  crossed  the  Battery,  where  the 
elder  bowed  to  his  friends  among  the  merchants 
who  lounged  about  the  city's  pleasure-ground, 
lazily  chatting  over  their  business  affairs.  Then 
they  turned  up  past  Bowling  Green  into  Broad 
way,  where  Mr.  Dolph  kept  on  bowing,  for  half  the 
town  was  out,  taking  the  fresh  morning  for  mar 
keting  and  all  manner  of  shopping.  Everybody 
knew  Jacob  Dolph  afar  off  by  his  blue  coat  with 
the  silver  buttons,  his  nankeen  waistcoat,  and  his 
red-checked  Indian  silk  neckcloth.  He  made  it  a 
sort  of  uniform.  Captain  Beare  had  brought  him 
a  bolt  of  nankeen  and  a  silk  kerchief  every  year 
since  1793,  when  Mr.  Dolph  gave  him  credit  for 
the  timber  of  which  the  Ursa  Minor  was  built. 

And     everybody     seemed     willing     to     make 


8  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

acquaintance  with  young  Jacob's  London-made 
kerseymere  breeches,  of  a  bright  canary  color,  and 
with  his  lavender  silk  coat,  and  with  his  little 
cliapeau  de  Paris.  Indeed,  young  Jacob  was  quite 
the  most  prominent  moving  spectacle  on  Broad 
way,  until  they  came  to  John  Street,  and  saw 
something  rolling  down  the  street  that  quite  cut 
the  yellow  kerseymeres  out  of  all  popular 
attention. 

This  was  a  carriage,  the  body  of  which  was 
shaped  like  a  huge  section  of  a  cheese,  set  up  on 
its  small  end  upon  broad,  swinging  straps  between 
two  pairs  of  wheels.  It  was  not  unlike  a  piece  of 
cheese  in  color,  for  it  was  of  a  dull  and  faded 
grayish-green,  like  mould,  relieved  by  pale-yellow 
panels  and  gilt  ornaments.  It  was  truly  an  inter 
esting  structure,  and  it  attracted  nearly  as  much 
notice  on  Broadway  in  1807  as  it  might  to-day. 
But  it  was  received  with  far  more  reverence,  for  it 
was  a  court  coach,  and  it  belonged  to  the  Des 
Anges  family,  the  rich  Huguenots  of  New 
Rochelle.  It  had  been  built  in  France,  thirty 
years  before,  and  had  been  sent  over  as  a  present 
to  his  brother  from  the  Count  des  Anges,  who  had 
himself  neglected  to  make  use  of  his  opportunities 
to  embrace  the  Protestant  religion. 

When  the  white-haired  old  lady  who  sat  in  this 
coach,  with  a  very  little  girl  by  her  side,  saw  Mr. 
Dolph  and  his  son,  she  leaned  out  of  the  window 
and  signalled  to  the  old  periwigged  driver  to  stop, 
and  he  drew  up  close  to  the  sidewalk.  And  then 
Mr.  Dolph  and  his  son  came  up  to  the  window  and 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  9 

took  off  their  hats,  and  made  a  great  low  bow  and 
a  small  low  bow  to  the  old  lady  and  the  little  girl. 

"  Madam  Des  Anges,"  said  Mr.  Dolph,  with  an 
idiom  which  he  had  learned  when  he  was  presented 
at  the  court  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  "has  surely 
not  driven  down  from  New  Eochelle  this  morning  ? 
That  would  tax  even  her  powers. " 

Madam  Des  Anges  did  not  smile — she  had  no 
taste  for  smiling — but  she  bridled  amiably. 

"No,  Mr.  Dolph,"  she  replied;  "I  have  been 
staying  with  my  daughter-in-law,  at  her  house  at 
King's  Bridge,  and  I  have  come  to  town  to  put  my 
little  granddaughter  to  school.  She  is  to  have  the 
privilege  of  being  a  pupil  of  Mme.  Dumesnil." 

Madam  Des  Anges  indicated  the  little  girl  with 
a  slight  movement,  as  though  she  did  not  wish  to 
allow  the  child  more  consideration  than  a  child 
deserved.  The  little  girl  turned  a  great  pair  of 
awed  eyes,  first  on  her  grandmother,  and  then  on 
the  gentlemen,  and  spoke  no  word.  Young  Jacob 
Dolph  stared  hard  at  her,  and  then  contemplated 
his  kerseymeres  with  lazy  satisfaction.  He  had 
no  time  for  girls.  And  a  boy  who  had  his  breeches 
made  in  London  was  a  boy  of  consequence,  and 
need  not  concern  himself  about  every  one  he  saw. 

"And  this  is  your  son,  I  make  no  doubt,"  went 
on  Madam  Des  Anges ;  "you  must  bring  him  to  see 
us  at  King's  Bridge,  while  we  are  so  near  you. 
These  young  people  should  know  each  other." 

Mr.  Dolph  said  he  would,  and  showed  a  becom 
ing  sense  of  the  honor  of  the  invitation;  and  he 
made  young  Jacob  say  a  little  speech  of  thanks, 


10  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

which  he  did  with  a  doubtful  grace ;  and  then  Mr. 
Dolph  sent  his  compliments  to  Madam  Des  Anges ' 
daughter-in-law,  and  Madam  Des  Anges  sent  her 
compliments  to  Mrs.  Dolph,  and  there  was  more 
stately  bowing,  and  the  carriage  lumbered  on, 
with  the  little  girl  looking  timorously  out  of  the 
window,  her  great  eyes  fixed  on  the  yellow  kersey 
meres,  as  they  twinkled  up  the  street. 

"Papa,"  said  young  Jacob,  as  they  turned  the 
corner  of  Ann  Street,  "when  may  I  go  to  a  boys' 
school?  I'm  monstrous  big  to  be  at  Mrs.  Kil- 
master's.  And  I  don't  like  to  be  a  girl-boy." 

"Are  you  a  girl-boy?"  inquired  his  father, 
smiling. 

"Aleck  Cameron  called  me  one  yesterday.  He 
said  I  was  a  girl-boy  because  I  went  to  dame- 
school.  He  called  me  Missy,  too!"  the  boy  went 
on,  with  his  breast  swelling. 

"We'll  see  about  it,"  said  Mr.  Dolph,  smiling 
again;  and  they  walked  on  in  silence  to  Mrs.  Kil- 
master's  door,  where  he  struck  the  knocker,  and  a 
neat  mulatto  girl  opened  the  narrow  door.  Then 
he  patted  his  boy  on  the  head  and  bade  him  good- 
by  for  the  morning,  and  told  him  to  be  a  good  boy 
at  school.  He  took  a  step  or  two  and  looked  back. 
Young  Jacob  lingered  on  the  step,  as  if  he  had  a 
further  communication  to  make.  He  paused. 

"I  thumped  him,"  said  young  Jacob,  and  the 
narrow  door  swallowed  him  up. 

Mr.  Dolph  continued  on  his  walk  up  Broadway. 
As  he  passed  the  upper  end  of  the  Common  he 
looked  with  interest  at  the  piles  of  red  sandstone 


THE  STOBY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  11 

among  the  piles  of  white  marble,  where  they  were 
building  the  new  City  Hall.  The  Council  had 
ordered  that  the  rear  or  northward  end  of  the 
edifice  should  be  constructed  of  red  stone ;  because 
red  stone  was  cheap,  and  none  but  a  few  sub 
urbans  would  ever  look  down  on  it  from  above 
Chambers  Street.  Mr.  Dolph  shook  his  head. 
He  thought  he  knew  better.  He  had  watched  the 
growth  of  trade;  he  knew  the  room  for  further 
growth;  he  had  noticed  the  long  converging  lines 
of  river-front,  with  their  unbounded  accommo 
dation  for  wharves  and  slips.  He  believed  that 
the  day  would  come — and  his  own  boy  might  see 
it — when  the  business  of  the  city  would  crowd  the 
dwelling-houses  from  the  river  side,  east  and  west, 
as  far,  maybe,  as  Chambers  Street.  He  had  no 
doubt  that  the  boy  might  find  himself,  forty  years 
from  then,  in  a  populous  and  genteel  neighbor 
hood.  Perhaps  he  foresaw  too  much ;  but  he  had 
a  jealous  yearning  for  a  house  that  should  be  a 
home  for  him,  and  for  his  child,  and  for  his  grand 
children.  He  wanted  a  place  where  his  wife  might 
have  a  garden ;  a  place  which  the  boy  would  grow 
up  to  love  and  cherish,  where  the  boy  might  bring 
a  wife  some  day.  And  even  if  it  were  a  little  out 
of  town — why,  his  wife  did  not  want  a  rout  every 
night ;  and  it  was  likely  his  old  friends  would  come 
out  and  see  him  once  in  a  while,  and  smoke  a  pipe 
in  his  garden  and  eat  a  dish  of  strawberries, 
perhaps. 

As  he  thought  it  all  over  for  the  hundredth  time, 
weighing    for    and    against    in    his    gentle    and 


12  THE  STOKY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

deliberative  mind,  he  strolled  far  out  of  town. 
There  was  a  house  here  and  there  on  the  road — a 
house  with  a  trim,  stiff  little  garden,  full  of  pink 
and  white  and  hlue  flowers  in  orderly,  clam-shell- 
bordered  beds.  But  it  was  certainly,  he  had  to 
admit,  as  he  looked  about  him,  very  countrified 
indeed.  It  seemed  that  the  city  must  lose  itself  if 
it  wandered  up  here  among  these  rolling  meadows 
and  wooded  hills.  Yet  even  up  here,  half  way  to 
Greenwich  Village,  there  were  little  outposts  of 
the  town — clumps  of  neighborly  houses,  mostly  of 
the  poorer  class,  huddling  together  to  form  small 
nuclei  for  sporadic  growth.  There  was  one  on  his 
right,  near  the  head  of  Collect  Street.  Perhaps 
that  quizzical  little  old  German  was  right,  who 
had  told  him  that  King's  Bridge  property  was  a 
rational  investment. 

He  went  across  the  hill  where  Grand  Street 
crosses  Broadway,  and  up  past  what  was  then 
North  and  is  to-day  Houston  Street,  and  then 
turned  down  a  straggling  road  that  ran  east  and 
west.  He  walked  toward  the  Hudson,  and  passed 
a  farmhouse  or  two,  and  came  to  a  bare  place 
where  there  were  no  trees,  and  only  a  few  tangled 
bushes  and  ground-vines. 

Here  a  man  was  sitting  on  a  stone,  awaiting 
him.  As  he  came  near,  the  man  arose. 

"Ah,  it's  you,  Weeks?  And  have  you  the 
plan?" 

"Yes,  Colonel — Mr.  Dolph.  I've  put  the  win 
dow  where  you  want  it — that  is,  my  brother  Levi 
did — though  I  don't  see  as  you're  going  to  have 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  13 

much  trouble  in  looking  over  anything  that's 
likely  to  come  between  you  and  the  river. " 

Mr.  Dolph  took  the  crisp  roll  of  parchment  and 
studied  it  with  loving  interest.  It  had  gone  back 
to  Ezra  Weeks,  the  builder,  and  his  brother  Levi, 
the  architect,  for  the  twentieth  time,  perhaps. 
Was  there  ever  an  architect's  plan  put  in  the 
hands  of  a  happy  nest-builder  where  the  windows 
did  not  go  up  and  down  from  day  to  day,  and  the 
doors  did  not  crawl  all  around  the  house,  and  the 
veranda  did  not  contract  and  expand  like  a  sensi 
tive  plant;  or  where  the  rooms  and  closets  and 
corridors  did  not  march  backward  and  forward 
and  in  and  out  at  the  bidding  of  every  fond, 
untutored  whim? 

"It's  a  monstrous  great  big  place  for  a  country- 
house,  Mr.  Dolph,"  said  Ezra  Weeks,  as  he  looked 
over  Jacob  Dolph 's  shoulder  at  the  drawings  of 
the  house,  and  shook  his  head  with  a  sort  of  pity 
ing  admiration  for  the  projector's  audacity. 

They  talked  for  a  while,  and  looked  at  the  site 
as  if  they  might  see  more  in  it  than  they  saw 
yesterday,  and  then  Weeks  set  off  for  the  city, 
pledged  to  hire  laborers  and  to  begin  the  work  on 
the  morrow. 

•"I  think  I  can  get  you  some  of  that  stone  that's 
going  into  the  back  of  the  City  Hall,  if  you  say  so, 
Mr.  Dolph.  That  stone  was  bought  cheap,  you 
know — bought  for  the  city." 

"See  what  you  can  do,  Weeks,"  said  Mr.  Dolph; 
and  Mr.  Weeks  went  whistling  down  the  road. 

Jacob  Dolph  walked   around  his  prospective 


14  THE  STORY  OF  A  XEW  YORK  HOUSE 

domain.  He  kicked  a  wild  blackberry  bush  aside, 
to  look  at  the  head  of  a  stake,  and  tried  to  realize 
that  that  would  be  the  corner  of  his  house.  He 
went  to  where  the  parlor  fireplace  would  be,  and 
•tared  at  the  grass  and  stones,  wondering  what  it 
would  be  like  to  watch  the  fire  nickering  on  the 
new  hearth.  Then  he  looked  over  toward  the 
Hudson,  and  saw  the  green  woods  on  Union  Hill 
and  the  top  of  a  white  sail  over  the  high  river- 
bank.  He  hoped  that  no  one  would  build  a  large 
house  between  him  and  the  river. 

He  lingered  so  long  that  the  smoke  of  midday 
dinners  was  arising  from  Greenwich  Village  when 
he  turned  back  toward  town.  When  he  reached 
the  Commons  on  his  homeward  way  he  came 
across  a  knot  of  idlers  who  were  wasting  the  hour 
of  the  noontide  meal  in  gaping  at  the  unfinished 
municipal  buildinir. 

They  were  admiringly  critical.  One  man  was 
vociferously  enthusiastic. 

"It's  a  marvellous  fine  building,  say  I,   sir! 
Worthy  of  the  classic  shades   of  antiquity.     If 
Europe  can  show  a  finer  than  that  will  be  when 
she's  done,  then,  in  my  opinion,  sir,  Europ* 
doing  well." 

"You  admire  the  architecture,  Mr.  Huggins?" 
asked  Mr.  Dolph,  coming  up  behind  him.  Mr. 
Huggins  turned  around,  slightly  disconcerted, 
and  assumed  an  amiability  of  manner  such  as  can 
only  be  a  professional  acquirement  among  us  poor 
creatures  of  human  nature. 

"Ah,   Mr.   Dolph— Colonel,   I   should    say 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  15 

have  purposed  to  do  myself  the  honor  of  present 
ing  myself  at  yonr  house  this  afternoon.  Colonel 
Iph,  to  inquire  if  you  did  not  desire  to  have 
your  peruke  frisee*  For  I  had  taken  the  liberty 
of  observing  you  in  conversation  with  Madam  Dee 
Anges  this  morning,  in  her  equipage,  and  it  had 
occurred  to  me  that  possibly  the  madam  might  be 
a-staying  with  you." 

"  Madam  Des  Anges  does  not  honor  my  house 
this  time,  Huggins,"  returned  Mr.  Dolph,  with  an 
indulgent  little  laugh;  ''and  my  poor  old  peruke 
will  do  very  well  for  to-da; 

There  was  a  perceptible  diminution  in  Mr. 
Huggins 's  ardor;  but  he  was  still  suave. 

"I  hope  the  madam  is  in  good  health,"  he 
remarked. 

•  •  S::o  is.  I  believe,"  said  Mr.  Dolph. 

•  •  And  your  good  lady,  sir?    I  have  not  had  the 
pleasure  of  treating  Mrs.  Dolph  professionally  for 
some  time,  sir,  I " 

Mr.   Dolph  was  wary.    "I  don't   think   Mrs. 
"ph  is  fond  of  the  latest  modes,  Huggins.     But 
here  comes  Mr.  Van  Riper.    Perhaps  he  will  have 
his  peruke  frisee." 

Mr.  HiiiTirins  got  out  of  a  dancing-master's  pose 
with  intelligent  alacrity,  bade  Mr.  Dolph  a  hasty 
"Good-afternoon!"  and  hurried  off  toward  his 
shop,  one  door  above  \Vall  Street.  Mr.  Van  Riper 
did  not  like  "John  Richard  Desbrosses  Huggi 
Knightof  the  Comb." 

There  was  something  else  that  Mr.  Van  Riper 
did  not  like. 


16  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

' '  Hullo,  Dolph ! "  he  hailed  his  friend.  « '  What 's 
this  I  hear  about  you  building  a  preposterous  tom 
fool  of  a  town-house  out  by  Greenwich?  Why 
don't  you  hire  that  house  that  Burr  had,  up 
near  Lispenard's  cow-pasture,  and  be  done  with 
it?" 

Mr.  Dolph  seized  his  chance. 

"It's  not  so  preposterous  as  all  that.  By  the 
way,  talking  of  Burr,  I  hear  from  Eichmond  that 
he'll  positively  be  tried  next  week.  Did  you  know 
that  young  Irving — William's  son,  the  youngest, 
the  lad  that  writes  squibs — has  gone  to  Eichmond 
for  the  defence?" 

"William  Irving 's  son  might  be  in  better  busi 
ness,"  grunted  Mr.  Van  Eiper,  for  a  moment 
diverted.  "If  we'd  got  at  that  devil  when  he 
murdered  poor  Hamilton — 'fore  gad,  we'd  have 
saved  the  trouble  of  trying  him.  Do  you  remem 
ber  when  we  was  for  going  to  Philadelphia  after 
him,  and  there  the  sly  scamp  was  at  home  all  the 
time  up  in  his  fine  house,  a-sitting  in  a  tub  of 
water,  reading  French  stuff,  as  cool  as  a  cow- 
cumber,  with  the  whole  town  hunting  for  him?" 
Then  he  came  back.  "But  that  house  of  yours. 
You  haven't  got  this  crazy  notion  that  New  York's 
going  to  turn  into  London  while  you  smoke  your 
pipe,  have  you?  You're  keeping  some  of  your 
seven  business  senses,  ain't  you?" 

"I  don't  know,"  Mr.  Dolph  mildly  defended  his 
hobby;  "there  is  a  great  potentiality  of  growth  in 
this  city.  Here's  an  estimate  that  John  Pintard 
made  the  other  day " 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  17 

"John  Pintard!  He's  another  like  you!"  said 
Mr.  Van  Eiper. 

"Well,  look  at  it  for  yourself,"  pleaded  the  be 
liever  in  New  York's  future. 

Mr.  Van  Riper  took  the  neatly  written  paper, 
and  simply  snorted  and  gasped  as  he  read  this : 

Statistical, 

By  the  numeration  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  city,  recently 
published,  the  progress  of  population  for  the  last  5  years  appears 
to  be  at  the  rate  of  25  per  cent.  Should  our  city  continue  to 
increase  in  the  same  proportion  during  the  present  century,  the 
aggregate  number  at  its  close  will  far  exceed  that  of  any  other 
city  in  the  Old  World,  Pekin  not  excepted,  as  will  appear  from 
the  following  table.  Progress  of  population  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  computed  at  the  rate  of  25  per  cent,  every  5  years: 

1805 75,770  1855..                   705,650 

1810 &5,715  1860 882,062 

1815 110,390  1865 1,102,577 

1820 147,987  1870 1,378,221 

1825 184,923  1875 1,722,776 

1830 231,228  1880 2,153,470 

1835 289,035  1885 2,691,837 

1840 361,293  1890 3,364,796 

1845 451,616  1895 4,205,995 

1850 564,520  1900 5,257,493 

When  he  had  read  it  through  he  was  a-quiver- 
ing,  crimson  with  that  rage  of  Conservative  indig 
nation  which  is  even  more  fervent  than  the  flames 
of  Radical  enthusiasm. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "there's  seventy-five  thousand 
people  in  this  town,  and  there'll  be  seventy-five 
thousand  bankrupts  if  this  lunacy  goes  on.  And 
there's  seventy-five  thousand  maggots  in  your 
brain,  and  seventy-five  thousand  in  John  Pin 
tard  's ;  and  if  you  two  live  to  see  nineteen  hundred, 


18  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

you'll  have  twice  five  million  two  hundred  and 
fifty-seven  thousand  four  hundred  and  ninety- 
three — whatever  that  may  be!"  And  he  thrust 
the  paper  back  at  Jacob  Dolph,  and  made  for  the 
Tontine  and  the  society  of  sensible  men. 


The  house  was  built,  in  spite  of  Abram  Van 
Riper 's  remonstrance.  It  had  a  stone  front, 
almost  flush  with  the  road,  and  brick  gable-ends, 
in  each  one  of  which,  high  up  near  the  roof,  stood 
an  arched  window,  to  lift  an  eyebrow  to  the  sun, 
morning  and  evening.  But  it  was  only  a  country- 
house,  after  all;  and  the  Dolphs  set  up  their 
carriage  and  drove  out  and  in,  from  June  to 
September. 

There  was  a  garden  at  the  side,  where  Mrs. 
Dolph  could  have  the  flowers  her  heart  had 
yearned  after  ever  since  Jacob  Dolph  brought 
her  from  her  home  at  Rondout,  when  she  was 
seventeen. 

Strengthened  by  the  country  air — so  they  said — 
young  Jacob  grew  clean  out  of  his  dame-school 
days  and  into  and  out  of  Columbia  College,  and 
was  sent  abroad,  a  sturdy  youth,  to  have  a  year's 
holiday.  It  was  to  the  new  house  that  he  came 
back  the  next  summer,  with  a  wonderful  stock  of 
fine  clothes  and  of  finer  manners,  and  with  a  pair 
of  mustaches  that  scandalized  everybody  but 
Madam  Des  Anges,  who  had  seen  the  like  in 
France  when  she  visited  her  brother.  And  a  very 


THE  STOKY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  19 

fine  young  buck  was  young  Jacob,  altogether,  with 
his  knowledge  of  French  and  his  ignorance  of 
Dutch,  and  a  way  he  had  with  the  women,  and 
another  way  he  had  with  the  men,  and  his  heirship 
to  old  Jacob  Dolph's  money  and  his  two  houses. 
For  they  stayed  in  the  old  house  until  1822. 


It  was  a  close,  hot  night  in  the  early  summer; 
there  was  a  thick,  warm  mist  that  turned  now  and 
then  into  a  soft  rain;  yet  every  window  in  the 
Dolphs'  house  on  State  Street  was  closed. 

It  had  been  a  hideous  day  for  New  York.  From 
early  morning  until  long  after  dark  had  set  in,  the 
streets  had  been  filled  with  frightened,  disordered 
crowds.  The  city  was  again  stricken  with  the  old, 
inevitable,  ever-recurring  scourge  of  yellow  fever, 
and  the  people  had  lost  their  heads.  In  every 
house,  in  every  office  and  shop,  there  was  hasty 
packing,  mad  confusion,  and  wild  flight.  It  was 
only  a  question  of  getting  out  of  town  as  best  one 
might.  Wagons  and  carts  creaked  and  rumbled 
and  rattled  through  every  street,  piled  high  with 
household  chattels,  up-heaped  in  blind  haste. 
Women  rode  on  the  swaying  loads,  or  walked 
beside  with  the  smaller  children  in  their  arms. 
Men  bore  heavy  burdens,  and  children  helped 
according  to  their  strength.  There  was  only  one 
idea,  and  that  was  flight — from  a  pestilence  whose 
coming  might  have  been  prevented,  and  whose 
course  could  have  been  stayed.  To  most  of  these 
poor  creatures  the  only  haven  seemed  to  be  Green- 


20  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

wich  Village ;  but  some  sought  the  scattered  settle 
ments  above;  some  crossed  to  Hoboken;  some  to 
Bushwick;  while  others  made  a  long  journey  to 
Staten  Island,  across  the  bay.  And  when  they 
reached  their  goals,  it  was  to  beg  or  buy  lodgings 
anywhere  and  anyhow;  to  sleep  in  cellars  and 
garrets,  in  barns  and  stables. 

The  panic  was  not  only  among  the  poor  and 
ignorant.  Merchants  were  moving  their  offices, 
and  even  the  Post  Office  and  the  Custom  House 
were  to  be  transferred  to  Greenwich.  There  were 
some  who  remained  faithful  throughout  all,  and 
who  labored  for  the  stricken,  and  whose  names  are 
not  even  written  in  the  memory  of  their  fellow- 
men.  But  the  city  had  been  so  often  ravaged 
before,  that  at  the  first  sight  there  was  one  mere 
animal  impulse  of  flight  that  seized  upon  all  alike. 

At  one  o'clock,  when  some  of  the  better  streets 
had  once  more  taken  on  their  natural  quiet,  an  ox 
cart  stood  before  the  door  of  the  Dolphs'  old 
house.  A  little  behind  it  stood  the  family  car 
riage,  its  lamps  unlit.  The  horses  stirred  un 
easily,  but  the  oxen  waited  in  dull,  indifferent 
patience.  Presently  the  door  opened,  and  two 
men  came  out  and  awkwardly  bore  a  plain  coffin  to 
the  cart.  Then  they  mounted  to  the  front  of  the 
cart,  hiding  between  them  a  muffled  lantern. 
They  wore  cloths  over  the  lower  part  of  their 
faces,  and  felt  hats  drawn  low  over  their  eyes. 
Something  in  their  gait  showed  them  to  be  sea 
faring  men,  or  the  like. 

Then  out  of  the  open  door  came  Jacob  Dolph, 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  21 

moving  with  a  feeble  shuffle  between  his  son  and 
his  old  negro  coachman — this  man  and  his  wife  the 
only  faithful  of  all  the  servants.  The  young  man 
put  his  father  in  the  carriage,  and  the  negro  went 
back  and  locked  the  doors  and  brought  the  keys  to 
his  young  master.  He  mounted  to  the  box,  and 
through  the  darkness  could  be  seen  a  white  towel 
tied  around  his  arm — the  old  badge  of  servitude 's 
mourning. 

The  oxen  were  started  up,  and  the  two  vehicles 
moved  up  into  Broadway.  They  travelled  with 
painful  slowness ;  the  horses  had  to  be  held  in  to 
keep  them  behind  the  cart,  for  the  oxen  could  be 
only  guided  by  the  whip,  and  not  by  word  of 
mouth.  The  old  man  moaned  a  little  at  the  pace, 
and  quivered  when  he  heard  the  distant  sound  of 
hammers. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked,  nervously. 

"They  are  boarding  up  some  of  the  streets," 
said  his  son;  "do  not  fear,  father.  Everything  is 
prepared;  and  if  we  make  no  noise,  we  shall  not 
be  troubled." 

"If  we  can  only  keep  her  out  of  the  Potter's 
Field— the  Potter's  Field!"  cried  the  father;  "I'll 
thank  God — I'll  ask  no  more — I'll  ask  no  more !" 

And  then  he  broke  down  and  cried  a  little, 
feebly,  and  got  his  son's  hand  in  the  darkness  and 
put  on  his  own  shoulder. 

It  was  nearly  two  when  they  came  to  St.  Paul's 
and  turned  the  corner  to  the  gate.  It  was  dark 
below,  but  some  frenzied  fools  were  burning  tar- 
barrels  far  down  Ann  Street,  and  the  light  flick- 


22  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

ered  on  the  top  of  the  church  spire.  They  crossed 
the  churchyard  to  where  a  shallow  grave  had  been 
dug,  half  way  down  the  hill.  The  men  lowered 
the  body  into  it;  the  old  negro  gave  them  a  little 
rouleau  of  coin,  and  they  went  hurriedly  away  into 
the  night. 

The  clergyman  came  out  by  and  by,  with  the 
sexton  behind  him.  He  stood  high  up  above  the 
grave,  and  drew  his  long  cloak  about  him  and 
lifted  an  old  pomander-box  to  his  face.  He  was 
not  more  foolish  than  his  fellows;  in  that  evil 
hour  men  took  to  charms  and  to  saying  of  spells. 
Below  the  grave  and  apart,  for  the  curse  rested 
upon  them,  too,  stood  Jacob  Dolph  and  his  son,  the 
old  man  leaning  on  the  arm  of  the  younger.  Then 
the  clergyman  began  to  read  the  service  for  the 
burial  of  the  dead,  over  the  departed  sister — and 
wife  and  mother.  He  spoke  low;  but  his  voice 
seemed  to  echo  in  the  stillness.  He  came  forward 
with  a  certain  shrinking,  and  cast  the  handful  of 
dust  and  ashes  into  the  grave.  When  it  was  done, 
the  sexton  stepped  forward  and  rapidly  threw  in 
the  earth  until  he  had  filled  the  little  hollow  even 
with  the  ground.  Then,  with  fearful  precaution, 
he  laid  down  the  carefully  cut  sods,  and  smoothed 
them  until  there  was  no  sign  of  what  had  been 
done.  The  clergyman  turned  to  the  two  mourners, 
without  moving  nearer  to  them,  and  lifted  up  his 
hands.  The  old  man  tried  to  kneel;  but  his  son 
held  him  up,  for  he  was  too  feeble,  and  they  bent 
their  heads  for  a  moment  of  silence.  The  clergy 
man  went  away  as  he  had  come ;  and  Jacob  Dolph 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  23 

and  his  son  went  back  to  the  carriage.  When  his 
father  was  seated,  young  Jacob  said  to  the  coach 
man:  "To  the  new  house." 

The  heavy  coach  swung  into  Broadway,  and 
climbed  up  the  hill  out  into  the  open  country. 
There  were  lights  still  burning  in  the  farmhouses, 
bright  gleams  to  east  and  west,  but  the  silence  of 
the  damp  summer  night  hung  over  the  sparse 
suburbs,  and  the  darkness  seemed  to  grow  more 
intense  as  they  drove  away  from  the  city.  The 
trees  by  the  roadside  were  almost  black  in  the  gray 
mist;  the  raw,  moist  smell  of  the  night,  the  damp 
air,  chilly  upon  the  high  land,  came  in  through  the 
carriage  windows.  Young  Jacob  looked  out  and 
noted  their  progress  by  familiar  landmarks  on  the 
road,  but  the  old  man  sat  with  his  head  bent  on  his 
new  black  stock. 

It  was  almost  three,  and  the  east  was  beginning 
to  look  dark,  as  though  a  storm  were  settling  there 
in  the  grayness,  when  they  turned  down  the 
straggling  street  and  drew  up  before  the  great 
dark  mass  that  was  the  new  house.  The  carriage- 
wheels  gritted  against  the  loose  stones  at  the  edge 
of  the  roadway,  and  the  great  door  of  the  house 
swung  open.  The  light  of  one  wavering  candle- 
flame,  held  high  above  her  head,  fell  on  the  black 
face  of  old  Chloe,  the  coachman's  wife.  There 
were  no  candles  burning  on  the  high-pitched  stair 
way  ;  all  was  dark  behind  her  in  the  empty  house. 

Young  Jacob  Dolph  helped  his  father  to  the 
ground,  and  between  the  young  man  and  the  negro 
old  Jacob  Dolph  wearily  climbed  the  steps.  Chloe 


24  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

lifted  her  apron  to  her  face,  and  turned  to  lead 
them  up  the  stair.  Her  husband  went  out  to  his 
horses,  shutting  the  door  softly  after  him,  between 
Jacob  Dolph's  old  life  and  the  new  life  that  was  to 
begin  in  the  new  house. 


WHEN  young  Jacob  Dolph  came  down  to 
breakfast  the  next  morning  he  found  his 
father  waiting  for  him  in  the  breakfast- 
room.  The  meal  was  upon  the  table.  Old  Chloe 
stood  with  her  black  hands  folded  upon  her  white 
apron,  and  her  pathetic  negro  eyes  following  the 
old  gentleman  as  he  moved  wistfully  about  the 
room. 

Father  and  son  shook  hands  in  silence,  and 
turned  to  the  table.  There  were  three  chairs  in 
their  accustomed  places.  They  hesitated  a  half- 
second,  looking  at  the  third  great  armchair,  as 
though  they  waited  for  the  mistress  of  the  house 
to  take  her  place.  Then  they  sat  down.  It  was 
six  years  before  any  one  took  that  third  chair,  but 
every  morning  Jacob  Dolph  the  elder  made  that 
little  pause  before  he  put  himself  at  the  foot  of  the 
table. 

On  this  first  morning  there  was  very  little  said 
and  very  little  eaten.  But  when  they  had  made  an 
end  of  sitting  at  the  table  old  Jacob  Dolph  said, 
with  something  almost  like  testiness  in  his  husky 
voice : 

"Jacob,  I  want  to  sell  the  house." 

"Father!" 

25 


26  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

"The  old  house,  I  mean;  I  shall  never  go  back 
there. " 

His  son  looked  at  him  with  a  further  inquiry. 
He  felt  a  sudden  new  apprehension.  The  father 
sat  back  in  his  easy-chair,  drumming  on  the  arms 
with  nervous  fingers. 

"I  shall  never  go  back  there,"  he  said  again. 

"Of  course  you  know  best,  sir,"  said  young 
Jacob,  gently;  "but  would  it  be  well  to  be  pre 
cipitate!  It  is  possible  that  you  may  feel  differ 
ently  some  time " 

"There  is  no  'some  time'  for  me!"  broke  in  the 
old  man,  gripping  the  chair-arms,  fiercely;  "my 
time's  done — done,  sir!" 

Then  his  voice  broke  and  became  plaintively 
kind. 

"There,  there!  Forgive  me,  Jacob,  boy.  But 
it 's  true,  my  boy,  true.  The  world 's  done,  for  me ; 
but  there's  a  world  ahead  for  you,  my  son,  thank 
God!  I'll  be  patient — I'll  be  patient.  God  has 
been  good  to  me,  and  I  haven't  many  years  to 
wait,  in  the  course  of  nature." 

He  looked  vacantly  out  of  the  window,  trying  to 
see  the  unforeseen  with  his  mental  sight. 

"While  I'm  here,  Jacob,  let  the  old  man  have 
his  way.  It's  a  whimsey;  I  doubt  'tis  hardly 
rational.  But  I  have  no  heart  to  go  home.  Let 
me  learn  to  live  my  life  here.  'Twill  be  easier." 

"But  do  you  think  it  necessary  to  sell,  sir? 
Could  you  not  hold  the  house?  Are  you  certain 
that  you  would  like  to  have  a  stranger  living 
there?" 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  27 

"I  care  not  a  pin  who  lives  within  those  four 
walls  now,  sir !"  cried  the  elder,  with  a  momentary 
return  of  his  vehemence.  "It's  no  house  to  me 
now.  Sell  it,  sir,  sell  it ! — if  there 's  any  one  will  give 
money  for  it  at  a  time  like  this.  Bring  every  stick 
of  furniture  and  every  stitch  of  carpet  up  here; 
and  let  me  have  my  way,  Jacob — it  won't  be  for 
long." 

He  got  up  and  went  blindly  out  of  the  room,  and 
his  son  heard  him  muttering,  "Not  for  long — not 
for  long,  now,"  as  he  wandered  about  the  house 
and  went  aimlessly  into  room  after  room. 

Old  Jacob  Dolph  had  always  been  an  indulgent 
parent,  and  none  kinder  ever  lived.  But  we 
should  hardly  call  him  indulgent  to-day.  Good  as 
he  was  to  his  boy,  it  had  always  been  with  the 
goodness  of  a  superior.  It  was  the  way  of  his 
time.  A  half-century  ago  the  child's  position  was 
equivocal.  He  lived  by  the  grace  of  God  and  his 
parents,  and  their  duty  to  him  was  rather  a  duty 
to  society,  born  of  an  abstract  morality.  Love 
was  given  him,  not  as  a  right,  but  as  an  indulgence. 
And  young  Jacob  Dolph,  in  all  his  grief  and  anx 
iety,  was  guiltily  conscious  of  a  secret  thrill  of 
pleasure — natural  enough,  poor  boy — in  his  sud 
den  elevation  to  the  full  dignity  of  manhood,  and 
his  father's  abdication  of  the  headship  of  the 
house. 

A  little  later  in  the  day,  urged  again  by  the  old 
gentleman,  he  put  on  his  hat  and  went  to  see 
Abram  Van  Riper.  Mr.  Van  Riper  was  now, 
despite  his  objections  to  the  pernicious  institution 


28  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

of  country-houses,  a  near  neighbor  of  the  Dolphs. 
He  had  yielded,  not  to  fashion,  but  to  yellow  fever, 
and  at  the  very  first  of  the  outbreak  had  bought 
a  house  on  the  outskirts  of  Greenwich  Village, 
and  had  moved  there  in  unseemly  haste.  He  had 
also  registered  an  unnecessarily  profane  oath 
that  he  would  never  again  live  within  the  city 
limits. 

When  young  Jacob  Dolph  came  in  front  of  the 
low,  hip-roofed  house,  whose  lower  story  of 
undressed  stone  shone  with  fresh  whitewash,  Mr. 
Van  Riper  stood  on  his  stoop  and  checked  his 
guest  at  the  front  gate,  a  dozen  yards  away. 
From  this  distance  he  jabbed  his  big  gold-headed 
cane  toward  the  young  man,  as  though  to  keep 
him  off. 

"Stay  there,  sir — you,  sir,  you  Jacob  Dolph!" 
he  roared,  brandishing  the  big  stick.  "Stand 
back,  I  tell  you!  Don't  come  in,  sir!  Good-day, 
sir — good-day,  good-day,  good-day!"  (This  hur 
ried  excursus  was  in  deference  to  a  sense  of  social 
duty.)  "Keep  away,  confound  you,  keep  away — 
consume  your  body,  sir,  stay  where  you  are ! ' ' 

"I'm  not  coming  any  nearer,  Mr.  Van  Riper," 
said  Jacob  Dolph,  with  a  smile  which  he  could  not 
help. 

' i I  can't  have  you  in  here,  sir, ' '  went  on  Mr.  Van 
Riper,  with  no  abatement  of  his  agitation.  "I 
don't  want  to  be  inhospitable;  but  I've  got  a  wife 
and  a  son,  sir,  and  you're  infectious — damn  it,  sir, 
you're  infectious!" 

"I'll  stay  where  I  am,  Mr.  Van  Riper,"  said 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  29 

young  Jacob,  smiling  again.  "I  only  came  with  a 
message  from  my  father/' 

"With  a  what?"  screamed  Mr.  Van  Riper.  "I 
can't  have — oh,  ay,  a  message!  Well,  say  it  then 
and  be  off,  like  a  sensible  youngster.  Consume  it, 
man,  can't  you  talk  farther  out  in  the  street?" 

When  Mr.  Van  Eiper  learned  his  visitor's  mes 
sage,  he  flung  his  stick  on  the  white  pebbles  of  the 
clam-shell-bordered  path,  and  swore  that  he,  Van 
Eiper,  was  the  only  sane  man  in  a  city  of  lunatics, 
and  that  if  Jacob  Dolph  tried  to  carry  out  his  plan 
he  should  be  shipped  straightway  to  Blooming- 
dale. 

But  young  Jacob  had  something  of  his  father's 
patience,  and,  despite  the  publicity  of  the  inter 
view,  he  contrived  to  make  Mr.  Van  Eiper  under 
stand  how  matters  stood.  To  tell  the  truth,  Van 
Eiper  grew  quite  sober  and  manageable  when  he 
realized  that  his  extravagant  imputation  of 
insanity  was  not  so  wide  of  the  mark  as  it  might 
have  seemed,  and  that  there  was  a  possibility  that 
his  old  friend's  mind  might  be  growing  weak.  He 
even  ventured  a  little  way  down  the  path  and 
permitted  Jacob  to  come  to  the  gate  while  they 
discussed  the  situation. 

"Poor  old  Dolph — poor  old  Jacob !"  he  groaned. 
"We  must  keep  him  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
sharks,  that  we  must!"  He  did  not  see  young 
Jacob's  irrepressible  smile  at  this  singular  exten 
sion  of  metaphor.  "He  mustn't  be  allowed  to  sell 
that  house  in  open  market — never,  sir !  Confound 
it,  I'll  buy  it  myself  before  I'll  see  him  fleeced !" 


30  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

In  the  end  he  agreed,  on  certain  strict  conditions 
of  precaution,  to  see  young  Jacob  the  next  day  and 
discuss  ways  and  means  to  save  the  property. 

"Come  here,  sir,  at  ten,  and  I'll  see  you  in  the 
sitting-room,  and  we'll  find  out  what  we  can  do  for 
your  father — curse  it,  it  makes  me  feel  bad;  by 
gad,  it  does!  Ten  to-morrow,  then — and  come 
fumigated,  young  man,  don't  you  forget  that — 
come  fumigated,  sir!" 

It  was  Van  Riper  who  bought  the  property  at 
last.  He  paid  eighteen  thousand  dollars  for  it. 
This  was  much  less  than  its  value ;  but  it  was  more 
than  any  one  else  would  have  given  just  at  that 
time,  and  it  was  all  that  Van  Riper  could  afford. 
The  transaction  weighed  on  the  purchaser's  mind, 
however.  He  had  bought  the  house  solely  out  of 
kindness,  at  some  momentary  inconvenience  to 
himself;  and  yet  it  looked  as  though  he  were 
taking  advantage  of  his  friend's  weakness. 
Abram  Van  Riper  was  a  man  who  cultivated  a 
clear  conscience,  of  a  plain,  old-fashioned  sort,  and 
the  necessity  for  self-examination  was  novel  and 
disagreeable  to  him. 


Life  lived  itself  out  at  Jacob  Dolph's  new  house 
whether  he  liked  it  or  not  The  furniture  came 
up-town,  and  was  somewhat  awkwardly  disposed 
about  its  new  quarters;  and  in  this  unhomelike 
combination  of  two  homes  old  Mr.  Dolph  sat  him 
self  down  to  finish  his  stint  of  life.  He  awoke 
each  morning  and  found  that  twenty-four  hours  of 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  31 

sleep  and  waking  lay  before  him,  to  be  got  through 
in  their  regular  order,  just  as  they  were  lived 
through  by  men  who  had  an  interest  in  living.  He 
went  to  bed  every  night,  and  crossed  off  one  from 
a  tale  of  days  of  which  he  could  not  know  the 
length. 

Of  course  his  son,  in  some  measure,  saved  his 
existence  from  emptiness.  He  was  proud  of 
young  Jacob — fond  and  proud.  He  looked  upon 
him  as  a  prince  of  men,  which  he  was,  indeed.  He 
trusted  absolutely  in  the  young  man,  and  his  trust 
was  well  placed.  And  he  knew  that  his  boy  loved 
him.  But  he  had  an  old  man's  sad  consciousness 
that  he  was  not  necessary  to  Jacob — that  he  was 
an  adjunct,  at  the  best,  not  an  integral  part  of  this 
younger  existence.  He  saw  Jacob  the  younger 
gradually  recovering  from  his  grief  for  the 
mother  who  had  left  them ;  and  he  knew  that  even 
so  would  Jacob  some  day  recover  from  grief  when 
his  father  should  have  gone. 

He  saw  this;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  he  felt  it 
acutely.  Nature  was  gradually*  dulling  his  sensi 
bilities  with  that  wonderful  anaesthetic  of  hers, 
which  is  so  much  kinder  to  the  patient  than  it  is  to 
his  watching  friends.  After  the  first  wild  freak 
of  selling  the  house,  he  showed,  for  a  long  time,  no 
marked  signs  of  mental  impairment,  beyond  his 
lack  of  interest  in  the  things  which  he  had  once 
cared  about — even  in  the  growth  of  the  city  he 
loved.  And  in  a  lonely  and  unoccupied  man, 
sixty-five  years  of  age,  this  was  not  unnatural. 
It  was  not  unnatural,  even,  if  now  and  then  he  was 


32    THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

whimsical,  and  took  odd  fancies  and  prejudices. 
But  nevertheless  the  work  was  going  on  within 
his  brain,  little  by  little,  day  by  day. 

He  settled  his  life  into  an  almost  mechanical 
routine,  of  which  the  most  active  part  was  his  daily 
walk  down  into  the  city.  At  first  he  would  not  go 
beyond  St.  Paul's  churchyard;  but  after  awhile  he 
began  to  take  timorous  strolls  among  the  old  busi 
ness  streets  where  his  life  had  been  passed.  He 
would  drop  into  the  offices  of  his  old  friends,  and 
would  read  the  market  reports  with  a  pretence  of 
great  interest,  and  then  he  would  fold  up  his  spec 
tacles  and  put  them  in  their  worn  leather  case,  and 
walk  slowly  out.  He  was  always  pleased  when 
one  of  the  younger  clerks  bowed  to  him  and  said, 
"Good-day,  Mr.  Dolph!" 

It  was  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  widowhood  that 
he  bethought  himself  of  young  Jacob's  need  of  a 
more  liberal  social  life  than  he  had  been  leading. 
The  boy  went  about  enough ;  he  was  a  good  deal  of 
a  beau,  so  his  father  heard;  and  there  was  no 
desirable  house  in  the  town  that  did  not  welcome 
handsome,  amiable  young  Dolph.  But  he  showed 
no  signs  of  taking  a  wife  unto  himself,  and  in  those 
days  the  bachelor  had  only  a  provisional  status  in 
society.  He  was  expected  to  wed,  and  the  whole 
circle  of  his  friends  chorused  yearly  a  deeper 
regret  for  the  lost  sheep,  as  time  made  that  detest 
able  thing,  an  "old  bachelor,"  of  him. 

Young  Jacob  was  receiving  many  courtesies  and 
was  making  no  adequate  return.  He  felt  it  him 
self,  but  he  was  too  tender  of  his  father's  change- 


THE  STOBY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  33 

less  grief  to  urge  him  to  open  the  great  empty 
house  to  their  friends.  The  father,  however,  felt 
that  it  was  his  duty  to  sacrifice  his  own  desire  for 
solitude,  and,  when  the  winter  of  1825  brought 
home  the  city's  wandering  children — there  were 
not  so  many  of  the  wandering  sort  in  1825 — he 
insisted  that  young  Jacob  should  give  a  dinner  to 
his  friends  among  the  gay  young  bachelors.  That 
would  be  a  beginning;  and  if  all  wTent  w^ell  they 
would  have  an  old  maiden  aunt  from  Philadelphia 
to  spend  the  winter  with  them,  and  help  them  to 
give  the  dinner  parties  which  do  not  encourage 
bachelorhood,  but  rather  convert  and  reform  the 
coy  celibate. 

The  news  went  rapidly  through  the  town.  The 
Dolph  hospitality  had  been  famous,  and  this  was 
taken  for  a  signal  that  the  Dolph  doors  were  to 
open  again.  There  was  great  excitement  in  Hud 
son  Street  and  St.  John's  Park.  Maidens,  bend 
ing  over  their  tambour-frames,  working  secret 
hopes  and  aspirations  in  with  their  blossoming 
silks  and  worsted,  blushed,  with  faint  speculative 
smiles,  as  they  thought  of  the  vast  social  possi 
bilities  of  the  mistress  of  the  grand  Dolph  house. 
Young  bachelors,  and  old  bachelors,  too,  rolled 
memories  of  the  Dolph  Madeira  over  longing 
tongues. 

The  Dolph  cellar,  too,  had  been  famous,  and  just 
at  that  period  New  Yorkers  had  a  fine  and  fanciful 
taste  in  wine,  if  they  had  any  self-respect  what 
ever. 

I  think  it  must  have  been  about  then  that  Mr. 


34  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

Dominick  Lynch  began  his  missionary  labors 
among  the  smokers  and  drinkers  of  this  city;  he 
who  bought  a  vineyard  in  France  and  the  Vuelta 
Abajo  plantations  in  Cuba,  solely  to  teach  the 
people  of  his  beloved  New  York  what  was  the 
positively  proper  thing  in  wines  and  cigars.  If  it 
was  not  then,  it  could  not  have  been  much  later 
that  Mr.  Dolph  had  got  accustomed  to  receiving, 
every  now  and  then,  an  unordered  and  unexpected 
consignment  of  wines  or  Havana  cigars,  sent  up 
from  Little  Dock  Street — or  what  we  call  Water 
Street  now,  the  lower  end  of  it.  And  I  am  sure 
that  he  paid  Mr.  Lynch 's  bill  with  glowing  pride ; 
for  Mr.  Lynch  extended  the  evangelizing  hand  of 
culture  to  none  but  those  of  pre-eminent  social 
position. 

It  was  to  be  quite  a  large  dinner;  but  it  was 
noticeable  that  none  of  the  young  men  who  were 
invited  had  engagements  of  regrettable  priority. 

Jacob  Dolph  the  elder  looked  more  interested  in 
life  than  he  had  looked  in  four  years  when  he 
stood  on  the  hearthrug  in  the  drawing-room  and 
received  his  son's  guests.  He  was  a  bold  figure 
among  all  the  young  men,  not  only  because  he  was 
tall  and  white-haired,  and  for  the  moment  erect, 
and  of  a  noble  and  gracious  cast  of  countenance, 
but  because  he  clung  to  his  old  style  of  dress — his 
knee-breeches  and  silk  stockings,  and  his  long  coat, 
black,  for  this  great  occasion,  but  of  the  "shad- 
belly  ' '  pattern.  He  wore  his  high  black  stock,  too, 
and  his  snow-white  hair  was  gathered  behind  into 
a  loose  peruke. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  35 

The  young  men  wore  trousers,  or  pantaloons,  as 
they  mostly  called  them,  strapped  under  their 
varnished  boots.  Their  coats  were  cut  like  our 
dress-coats,  if  you  can  fancy  them  with  a  wild 
amplitude  of  collar  and  lapel.  They  wore  large 
cravats  and  gaudy  waistcoats,  and  two  or  three 
of  them  who  had  been  too  much  in  England 
came  with  shawls  or  rugs  around  their  shoul 
ders. 

They  were  a  fashionable  lot  of  people,  and  this 
was  a  late  dinner,  so  they  sat  down  at  six  o  'clock 
in  the  great  dining-room — not  the  little  breakfast- 
room — with  old  Jacob  Dolph  at  one  end  of  the 
table  and  young  Jacob  Dolph  at  the  other. 

It  was  a  pleasant  dinner,  and  the  wine  was  good, 
and  the  company  duly  appreciative,  although 
individually  critical. 

Old  Jacob  Dolph  had  on  his  right  an  agreeable 
French  count,  just  arrived  in  New  York,  who  was 
creating  a  furor;  and  on  his  left  was  Mr.  Philip 
Waters,  the  oldest  of  the  young  men,  who,  being 
thirty-five,  had  a  certain  consideration  for  old  age. 
But  old  Jacob  Dolph  was  not  quite  at  his  ease. 
He  did  not  understand  the  remarkable  decorum  of 
the  young  men.  He  himself  belonged  to  the  age  of 
" bumpers  and  no  heel-taps,''  and  nobody  at  his 
board  to-night  seemed  to  care  about  drinking 
bumpers,  even  out  of  the  poor,  little,  new-fangled 
claret-glasses,  that  held  only  a  thimbleful  apiece. 
He  had  never  known  a  lot  of  gentlemen,  all  by 
themselves,  to  be  so  discreet.  Before  the  evening 
was  over  he  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  he  was 


36  THE  STOBY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

the  only  man  who  was  proposing  toasts,  and  then 
he  proposed  no  more. 

Things  had  changed  since  he  was  a  young  buck, 
and  gave  bachelor  parties.  Why,  he  could  remem 
ber  seeing  his  own  good  father — an  irreproachable 
gentleman,  surely — lock  the  door  of  his  dining- 
room  on  the  inside — ay,  at  just  such  a  dinner  as 
this — and  swear  that  no  guest  of  his  should  go  out 
of  that  room  sober.  And  his  word  had  been  kept. 
Times  were  changing.  He  thought,  somehow, 
that  these  young  men  needed  more  good  port  in 
their  veins. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  festivities  he  grew  silent. 
He  gave  no  more  toasts,  and  drank  no  more 
bumpers,  although  he  might  safely  have  put 
another  bottle  or  two  under  his  broad  waistcoat. 
But  he  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and  rested  one 
hand  on  the  table,  playing  with  his  wineglass  in 
an  absent-minded  way.  There  was  a  vague  smile 
on  his  face;  but  every  now  and  then  he  knit  his 
heavy  gray  brows  as  if  he  were  trying  to  work 
out  some  problem  of  memory.  Mr.  Philip  Waters 
and  the  French  count  were  talking  across  him ;  he 
had  been  in  the  conversation,  but  he  had  dropped 
out  some  time  before.  At  last  he  rose,  with  his 
brows  knit,  and  pulled  out  his  huge  watch,  and 
looked  at  its  face.  Everybody  turned  toward  him, 
and,  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  his  son  half  rose 
to  his  feet.  He  put  the  watch  back  in  his  pocket, 
and  said,  in  his  clear,  deep  voice:  " Gentlemen,  I 
think  we  will  rejoin  the  ladies." 

There  was  a  little  impulsive  stir  around  the 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  37 

table,  and  then  lie  seemed  to  understand  that  he 
had  wandered,  and  a  frightened  look  came  over  his 
face.  He  tottered  backward,  and  swayed  from 
side  to  side.  Mr.  Philip  Waters  and  the  French 
man  had  their  arms  behind  him  before  he  could 
fall,  and  in  a  second  or  two  he  had  straightened 
himself  up.  He  made  a  stately,  tremulous 
apology  for  what  he  called  his  "infelicitous 
absence  of  mind,"  and  then  he  marched  off  to  bed 
by  himself,  suffering  no  one  to  go  with  him. 

A  little  while  later  in  the  evening,  Mr.  Philip 
Waters,  walking  down  Broadway  (which  thor 
oughfare  was  getting  to  have  a  fairly  suburban 
look),  informed  the  French  count  that  in  his,  Mr. 
Waters  *s,  opinion,  young  Jacob  Dolph  would  own 
that  house  before  long. 

Young  Jacob  Dolph 's  father  insisted  on  repeti 
tions  of  the  bachelor  dinner,  but  he  never  again 
appeared  in  the  great  dining-room.  When  there 
was  a  stag-party  he  took  his  own  simple  dinner  at 
five  o'clock  and  went  to  bed  early,  and  lay  awake 
until  his  son  had  dismissed  the  last  mild  reveller, 
and  he  could  hear  the  light,  firm,  young  footstep 
mounting  the  stairs  to  the  bedroom  door  opposite 

his  own. 

•        ••••••• 

That  was  practically  the  end  of  it  for  old  Jacob 
Dolph.  The  maiden  aunt,  who  had  been  invited, 
was  notified  that  she  could  not  come,  for  Mr.  Dolph 
was  not  well  enough  to  open  his  house  that  winter. 
But  it  was  delicately  intimated  to  her  that  if  he 
grew  worse  she  might  still  be  sent  for,  and  that 


38  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

alleviated  her  natural  disappointment.  She  liked 
to  give  parties;  but  there  is  also  a  chastened  joy 
for  some  people  in  being  at  the  head  of  a  house  of 
mourning. 

Old  Mr.  Dolph  grew  no  worse  physically,  except 
that  he  was  inclined  to  make  his  daily  walks 
shorter,  and  that  he  grew  fonder  of  sitting  at 
home  in  the  little  breakfast-room,  where  the  sun 
shone  almost  all  day  long,  and  where  Mrs.  Dolph 
had  once  been  fond  of  coming  to  sew.  Her  little 
square  work-table  of  mahogany  stood  there  still. 
There  the  old  gentleman  liked  to  dine,  and  often 
he  dined  alone.  Young  Jacob  was  in  great 
demand  all  over  town,  and  his  father  knew  that  he 
ought  to  go  out  and  amuse  himself.  And  the  young 
man,  although  he  was  kind  and  loving,  and  never 
negligent  in  any  office  of  respect  or  affection,  had 
that  strong  youth  in  him  which  makes  it  impossible 
to  sit  every  day  of  the  week  opposite  an  old  man 
whose  world  had  slipped  by  him,  who  knew 
nothing  of  youth  except  to  love  it  and  wonder  at  it. 

In  the  morning,  before  he  went  out  for  his  daily 
tramp  into  town,  old  Jacob  would  say  to  young 
Jacob : 

"I  suppose  I  shall  see  you  at  dinner,  my  boy?" 

And  young  Jacob  would  say,  "Yes,  sir,"  or 
"No,  sir,  I  think  not.  Mrs.  Des  Anges  was  in 
town  yesterday,  and  she  asked  me  to  ride  up  there 
to-day  and  dine.  And  Diana"  (Diana  was  his  big 
black  mare)  "needs  a  little  work;  she's  getting 
badly  out  of  condition.  So,  if  it  doesn't  matter  to 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  39 

you,  sir,  111  just  run  up  there  and  get  back  before 
the  moon  sets." 

And  the  father  would  answer  that  it  didn't  mat 
ter,  and  would  send  his  best  respects,  through 
Mrs.  Des  Anges  at  King's  Bridge,  to  Madam  Des 
Anges  at  New  Eochelle ;  and  at  night  he  would  sit 
down  alone  to  his  dinner  in  the  breakfast-room, 
served  by  old  Chloe,  who  did  her  humble  best  to 
tempt  his  appetite,  which  was  likely  to  be  feeble 
when  Master  Jacob  was  away. 

Master  Jacob  had  taken  to  riding  to  King's 
Bridge  of  late.  Sometimes  he  would  start  out 
early  in  the  morning,  just  about  the  time  when 
young  Van  Eiper  was  plodding  by  on  his  way  to 
the  shop.  Young  Van  Eiper  liked  to  be  at  the 
shop  an  hour  earlier  than  his  father.  Old  Mr. 
Dolph  was  always  up,  on  these  occasions,  to  see 
his  son  start  off.  He  loved  to  look  at  the  boy,  in 
his  English  riding-boots  and  breeches,  astride  of 
black  Diana,  who  pranced  and  curvetted  up  the 
unpaved  road.  •  Young  Jacob  had  her  well  in 
hand,  but  he  gave  her  her  head  and  let  her  play 
until  they  reached  Broadway,  where  he  made  her 
strike  a  rattling  regular  pace  until  they  got  well 
up  the  road;  and  then  she  might  walk  up  Bloom- 
ingdale  way  or  across  to  Hickory  Lane. 

If  he  went  up  by  the  east  he  was  likely  to  dis 
mount  at  a  place  which  you  can  see  now,  a  little 
west  and  south  of  McComb's  Dam  Bridge,  where 
there  is  a  bit  of  rocky  hollow,  and  a  sort  of  hori 
zontal  cleft  in  the  rocks  that  has  been  called  a  cave, 


40    THE  STORY  OF  A  NEAV  YORK  HOUSE 

and  a  water-washed  stone  above,  whose  oddly 
shaped  depression  is  called  an  Indian's  footprint. 
He  would  stop  there,  because  right  in  that  hollow, 
as  I  can  tell  you  myself,  grew,  in  his  time  as  in 
mine,  the  first  of  the  spring  flowers.  It  was  full  of 
violets  once,  carpeted  fairly  with  the  pale,  delicate 
petals. 

And  up  toward  the  west,  on  a  bridle-path 
between  the  hills  and  the  river,  as  you  came 
toward  Fort  Washington,  going  to  Tubby  Hook — 
we  are  refined  nowadays,  and  Tubby  Hook  is 
"Inwood" — Heaven  help  it! — there  were  wonder 
ful  flowers  in  the  woods.  The  wind-flowers  came 
there  early,  nestling  under  the  gray  rocks  that 
sparkled  with  garnets;  and  there  bloomed  great 
bunches  of  Dutchman  's-breeches — not  the  thin 
sprays  that  come  in  the  late  New  England  spring, 
but  huge  clumps  that  two  men  could  not  enclose 
with  linked  hands;  great  masses  of  scarlet  and 
purple,  and — mostly — of  a  waxy  white,  with 
something  deathlike  in  their  translucent  beauty. 
There,  also,  he  would  wade  into  the  swamps 
around  a  certain  little  creek,  lured  by  a  hope  of  the 
jack-in-the-pulpit,  to  find  only  the  odorous  and  dis 
appointing  skunk-cabbage.  And  there  the  woods 
were  full  of  the  aroma  of  sassafras,  and  of  birch 
tapped  by  the  earliest  woodpecker,  whose  drum 
ming  throbbed  through  the  young  man's  deep  and 
tender  musing. 

And — strange  enough  for  a  young  man  who 
rides  only  to  exercise  his  black  mare — he  never 
came  out  of  those  woods  without  an  armful  of 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  41 

columbine  or  the  like.  And — strange  enough  for 
any  young  man  in  this  world  of  strange  things — 
when  he  sat  down  at  the  table  of  Mrs.  Des  Anges, 
in  her  pleasant  house  near  Harlem  Creek,  Miss 
Aline  Des  Anges  wore  a  bunch  of  these  columbines 
at  her  throat.  Miss  Aline  Des  Anges  was  a  slim 
girl,  not  very  tall,  with  great  dark  eyes  that  fol 
lowed  some  people  with  a  patient  wistfulness. 

One  afternoon,  in  May  of  1827,  young  Jacob 
found  his  father  in  the  breakfast-room,  and  said 
to  him: 

"Father,  I  am  going  to  marry  Aline  Des 
Anges. ' ' 

His  father,  who  had  been  dozing  in  the  sun  by 
the  south  window,  raised  his  eyes  to  his  son's  face 
with  a  kindly,  blank  look,  and  said,  thoughtfully : 

"Des  Anges.  That's  a  good  family,  Jacob,  and 
a  wonderful  woman,  Madam  Des  Anges.  Is  she 
alive  vet?" 


When  Madam  Des  Anges,  eighty  years  old,  and 
strong  and  well,  heard  of  this,  she  said : 

"It  is  the  etiquette  of  France  that  one  family 
should  make  the  proposition  to  the  other  family. 
Under  the  circumstances  I  will  be  the  family  that 
proposes.  I  will  make  a  precedent.  The  Des 
Anges  make  precedents." 

And  she  rode  down  to  the  Dolph  house  in  the 
family  carriage — the  last  time  it  ever  went  out — 
and  made  her  "proposition"  to  Jacob  Dolph  the 


42  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

elder,  and  he  brightened  up  most  wonderfully, 
until  you  would  have  thought  him  quite  his  old 
self,  and  he  told  her  what  an  honor  he  esteemed 
the  alliance,  and  paid  her  compliments  a  hundred 
words  long. 

And  in  May  of  the  next  year,  King's  Bridge 
being  out  of  the  question,  and  etiquette  being 
waived  at  the  universal  demand  of  society,  the 
young  couple  stood  up  in  the  drawing-room  of  the 
Dolph  house  to  be  wed. 

The  ceremony  was  fashionably  late — seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  And  after  it  was  over,  and 
the  young  couple  had  digested  what  St.  Paul  had 
to  say  about  the  ordinance  of  wedlock,  and  had 
inaudibly  promised  to  do  and  be  whatever  the 
domine  required  of  them,  they  were  led  by  the  half- 
dozen  groomsmen  to  the  long  glass  between  the 
front  windows,  and  made  to  stand  up  there,  with 
their  faces  toward  the  company,  and  to  receive 
the  congratulations  of  a  mighty  procession  of 
friends,  who  all  used  the  same  formulas,  ex 
cept  the  very  old  ones,  who  were  delicately  in 
delicate. 

The  bridegroom  wore  a  blue  coat  and  trousers, 
and  a  white  satin  waistcoat  embroidered  with 
silver-thread  roses  and  lilies-of-the-valley.  The 
coat  was  lined  with  cream-colored  satin,  quilted  in 
a  most  elaborate  pattern;  and  his  necktie  was  of 
satin,  too,  with  embroidered  ends.  His  shirt  was 
a  miracle  of  fine  linen.  As  to  the  bride,  she  was 
in  white  satin  and  lace,  and  at  her  throat  she  wore 
a  little  bunch  of  late  white  columbines,  for  which 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YOBK  HOUSE  43 

Mr.  Jacob  Dolph  the  younger  had  scoured  the 
woods  near  Fort  Washington. 

There  was  to  be  a  grand  supper,  later ;  and  the 
time  of  waiting  was  filled  up  with  fashionable  con 
versation. 

That  dear  old  doctor,  who  was  then  a  dear  young 
doctor,  and  whose  fine  snow-crowned  face  stood  in 
later  years  as  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  all 
that  was  brave,  kindly,  self-sacrificing,  and  benevo 
lent  in  the  art  of  healing,  was  seated  by  Madam 
Des  Anges,  and  was  telling  her,  in  stately  phrase, 
suited  to  his  auditor,  of  a  certain  case  of  heroism 
with  which  he  had  met  in  the  course  of  his  prac 
tice.  Mr.  Blank,  it  appeared,  had  been  bitten  by 
a  dog  that  was  supposed  to  be  possessed  by  the 
rabies.  For  months  he  had  suffered  the  agonies 
of  mental  suspense  and  of  repeated  cauterizing  of 
the  flesh,  and  during  those  months  had  concealed 
his  case  from  his  wife,  that  he  might  spare  her 
pain — suffering  in  silence  enough  to  unnerve  most 
men. 

"It  was  heroic, "  said  Dr.  F. 

Madam  Des  Anges  bowed  her  gray  head  approv 
ingly. 

"I  think,"  she  said,  "his  conduct  shows  him  to 
be  a  man  of  taste.  Had  he  informed  his  wife  of 
his  condition,  she  might  have  experienced  the  most 
annoying  solicitude ;  and  I  am  informed  that  she  is 
a  person  of  feeble  character." 

The  doctor  looked  at  her,  and  then  down  at  the 
floor;  and  then  he  asked  her  if  she  did  not  hope 
that  Almaviva  Lynch  would  bring  Garcia  back 


44  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

again,  with  that  marvellous  Italian  opera,  which, 
as  he  justly  observed,  captivated  the  eye,  charmed 
the  ear,  and  awakened  the  profoundest  emotions 
of  the  heart. 

And  at  that  Madam  Des  Anges  showed  some 
animation,  and  responded  that  she  had  listened  to 
some  pleasing  operas  in  Paris;  but  she  did  not 
know  that  they  were  of  Italian  origin. 

But  if  Madam  Des  Anges  was  surprised  to  learn 
that  any  good  thing  could  come  out  of  any  other 
country  than  France,  there  was  another  surprise 
in  store  for  her,  and  it  did  not  long  impend. 

It  was  only  a  little  while  after  this  that  her 
grandson-in-law,  finding  her  on  his  right  and 
Abram  Van  Riper  on  his  left — he  had  served  out 
his  time  as  a  statue  in  front  of  the  mirror — thought 
it  proper  to  introduce  to  Madam  Des  Anges  his 
father's  old  friend,  Mr.  Van  Riper.  Mr.  Van 
Riper  bowed  as  low  as  his  waistcoat  would  allow, 
and  courteously  observed  that  the  honor  then  ac 
corded  him  he  had  enjoyed  earlier  in  the  evening 
through  the  kind  offices  of  Mr.  Jacob  Dolph,  senior. 

Madam  Des  Anges  dandled  her  quizzing-glass 
as  though  she  meant  to  put  it  up  to  her  eye,  and 
said,  in  a  weary  way : 

'  *  Mr. — ah — Van  Riper  must  pardon  me.  I  have 
not  the  power  of  remembering  faces  that  some  peo 
ple  appear  to  have ;  and  my  eyes — my  eyes  are  not 
strong." 

Old  Van  Riper  stared  at  her,  and  he  turned  a 
turkey-cock  purple  all  over  his  face,  down  to  the 
double  chin  that  hung  over  his  white  neckerchief. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  45 

"If  your  ladyship  has  to  buy  spectacles,"  he 
sputtered,  "it  needn't  be  on  my  account." 

And  he  stamped  off  to  the  sideboard  and  tried  to 
cool  his  red-hot  rage  with  potations  of  Jamaica 
rum.  There  his  wife  found  him.  She  had  drawn 
near  when  she  saw  him  talking  with  the  great 
Madam  Des  Anges,  and  she  had  heard,  as  she  stood 
hard  by  and  smiled  unobtrusively,  the  end  of  that 
brief  conversation.  Her  face,  too,  was  flushed — 
a  more  fiery  red  than  her  flame-colored  satin  dress. 

She  attacked  him  in  a  vehement  whisper. 

"Van  Riper,  what  are  you  doing?  I'd  almost 
believe  you  'd  had  too  much  liquor,  if  I  didn't  know 
you  hadn't  had  a  drop.  Will  you  ever  learn  what 
gentility  is!  D'ye  want  us  to  live  and  die  like 
toads  in  a  hole  ?  Here  you  are  with  your  ill  man 
ners,  offending  Madam  Des  Anges,  that  everybody 
knows  is  the  best  of  the  best,  and  there's  an  end  of 
all  likelihood  of  ever  seeing  her  and  her  folks,  and 
two  nieces  unmarried  and  as  good  girls  as  ever 
was,  and  such  a  connection  for  your  son,  wrho 
hasn't  been  out  of  the  house  it's  now  twelve 
months — except  to  this  very  wedding  here,  and 
you've  no  thought  of  your  family  when  once  you 
lose  that  mighty  fine  temper  of  yours,  that  you're 
so  prodigious  proud  of;  and  where  you'll  end  us, 
Van  Riper,  is  more  than  I  know,  I  vow. ' ' 

But  all  she  could  get  out  of  Van  Riper  was : 

' '  The  old  harridan !  She  '11  remember  my  name 
this  year  or  two  to  come,  I'll  warrant  ye !" 

It  was  all  over  at  last,  and  old  black  Julius,  who 


46  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

had  been  acting  as  a  combination  of  link-boy  and 
major-domo  at  the  foot  of  the  front  steps,  extin 
guished  his  lantern,  and  went  to  bed,  some  time 
before  a  little  white  figure  stole  up  the  stairs  and 
slipped  into  a  door  that  Chloe — black  Chloe — held 
open. 

And  the  next  day  Jacob  Dolph  the  elder  handed 
the  young  bride  into  the  new  travelling-carriage 
with  his  stateliest  grace,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jacob 
Dolph,  junior,  rolled  proudly  up  the  road,  through 
Bloomingdale,  and  across  King's  Bridge — stop 
ping  for  luncheon  at  the  Des  Anges  house — over 
to  New  Eochelle,  where  the  feminine  head  of  the 
house  of  Des  Anges  received  them  at  her  broad 
front  door,  and  where  they  had  the  largest  room 
in  her  large,  old-fashioned  house,  for  one  night. 
Madam  Des  Anges  wished  to  keep  them  longer, 
and  was  authoritative  about  it.  But  young  Jacob 
settled  the  question  of  supremacy  then  and  there, 
with  the  utmost  courtesy,  and  Madam  Des  Anges, 
being  great  enough  to  know  that  she  was  beaten, 
sent  off  the  victor  on  the  morrow,  with  his  trem 
bling  accomplice  by  his  side,  and  wished  them  bon 
voyage  as  heartily  as  she  possibly  could. 

So  they  started  afresh  on  their  bridal  tour,  and 
very  soon  the  travelling  carriage  struck  the  old 
Queen  Anne's  Road,  and  reached  Yonkers.  And 
there,  and  from  there  up  to  Fishkill,  they  passed 
from  one  country-house  to  another,  bright  particu 
lar  stars  at  this  dinner  and  at  that  supper,  staying 
a  day  here  and  a  night  there,  and  having  just  the 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  47 

sort  of  sociable,  public,  restless,  rattling  good  time 
that  neither  of  them  wanted. 

At  every  country-house  where  they  stayed  a  day 
they  were  pressed  to  stay  a  week,  and  always  the 
whole  neighborhood  was  routed  out  to  pay  them 
social  tribute.  The  neighbors  came  in  by  all  man-' 
ner  of  conveyances.  One  family  of  aristocrats 
started  at  six  o  'clock  in  the  morning,  and  travelled 
fourteen  miles  down  the  river  in  an  ox-cart,  the 
ladies  sitting  bolt  upright,  with  their  hair  elabo 
rately  dressed  for  the  evening's  entertainment. 
And  once  a  regular  assembly  ball  was  given  in 
their  honor,  at  a  town-hall,  the  use  of  which  was 
granted  for  the  purpose  specified  by  unanimous 
vote  of  the  town  council.  Of  course,  they  had  a 
very  good  time;  but  then  there  are  various  sorts 
of  good  times.  Perhaps  they  might  have  selected 
another  sort  for  themselves. 

There  is  a  story  that,  on  their  way  back,  they 
put  up  for  several  days  at  a  poor  little  hostelry 
under  the  hills  below  Peekskill,  and  spent  their 
time  in  wandering  through  the  woods  and  picking 
wild-flowers;  but  it  lacks  confirmation,  and  I 
should  be  sorry  to  believe  that  two  well-brought-up 
young  people  would  prefer  their  own  society  to 
the  unlimited  hospitality  of  their  friends  in  the 
country. 

Old  Jacob  Dolph,  at  home,  had  the  great  house 
all  to  himself ;  and,  although  black  Chloe  took  ex 
cellent  care  of  his  material  comforts,  he  was  rest 
less  and  troubled.  He  took  most  pleasure  in  a 


48  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

London  almanac,  on  whose  smudgy  pages  he 
checked  off  the  days.  Letters  came  as  often  as  the 
steamboat  arrived  from  Albany,  and  he  read  them, 
after  his  fashion.  It  took  him  half  the  week  to 
get  through  one  missive,  and  by  that  time  another 
had  arrived.  But  I  fear  he  did  not  make  much  out 
of  them.  Still,  they  gave  him  one  pleasure.  He 
endorsed  them  carefully  with  the  name  of  the 
writer,  and  the  date  of  receipt,  and  then  he  laid 
them  away  in  his  desk,  as  neatly  as  he  had  filed 
his  business  letters  in  his  old  days  of  active  life. 

Every  night  he  had  a  candle  alight  in  the  hall 
way;  and  if  there  were  a  far-off  rumble  of  car 
riage-wheels  late  at  night,  he  would  rise  from  his 
bed — he  was  a  light  sleeper,  in  his  age — and  steal 
out  into  the  corridor,  hugging  his  dressing-robe 
about  him,  to  peer  anxiously  down  over  the  balus 
ters  till  the  last  sound  and  the  last  faint  hope  of 
his  son's  return  had  died  away. 

And,  indeed,  it  was  late  in  July  when  the  travel 
ling-carriage  once  more  drew  up  in  front  of  the 
Dolph  house,  and  old  Julius  opened  the  door,  and 
old  Mr.  Dolph  welcomed  them,  and  told  them  that 
he  had  been  very  lonely  in  their  absence,  and  that 
their  mother — and  then  he  remembered  that  their 
mother  was  dead,  and  went  into  the  house  with  his 
head  bowed  low. 


Ill 


ST.  JOHN'S  PARK  and  Hudson  Street  and  all 
well-bred  New  York,  for  that  matter,  had  its 
fill  of  the  Dolph  hospitality  the  next  winter. 
It  was  dinner  and  ball  and  rout  and  merry-making 
of  one  sort  or  another,  the  season  through.  The 
great  family  sleighs  and  the  little  bachelor  sleighs 
whirred  and  jingled  up  to  the  Dolph  door  surely 
two,  and  sometimes  four,  evenings  in  every  week, 
and  whirred  and  jingled  away  again  at  intensely 
fashionable  hours,  such  as  plain  folk  used  for 
sleeping. 

They  woke  up  Abram  Van  Riper,  did  the  rev 
ellers  northward  bound  to  country  houses  on  the 
river-side,  and,  lying  deep  in  his  featherbed,  he 
directed  his  rumbling  imprecations  at  the  panes  of 
glass,  that  sparkled  with  frost  in  the  mild  moon 
light. 

"Oh,  come,  maidens,  come,  o'er  the  blue,  rolling  wave, 
The  lovely  should  still  be  the  care  of  the  brave — 
Trancadillo,    trancadillo,    trancadillo,    dillo,    dillo,    dillo ! ' ' 

sang  the  misguided  slaves  of  fashion,  as  they  sped 
out  of  hearing. 

'  *  Trancadillo ! ' '  rumbled  Mr.  Van  Riper.  '  '  I  'd 
like  to  trancadillo  them,  consume  'em!"  and  then 
he  cursed  his  old  friend 's  social  circle  for  a  parcel 

49 


50  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

of  trumpery  fools  and  Mrs.  Van  Riper,  lying  by 
his  side,  sighed  softly  with  chastened  regret  and 
hopeless  aspiration. 

But  everybody  else — everybody  who  was  any 
body — blessed  the  Dolphs  and  the  Dolphs'  cellar, 
and  their  man-servant  and  their  maid-servant,  and 
their  roasted  ox  and  their  saddle  of  venison,  and 
the  distinguished  stranger  who  was  within  their 
gates;  and  young  Mrs.  Dolph  was  made  as  wel 
come  as  she  made  others. 

For  the  little  girl  with  the  great  dark  eyes  took 
to  all  this  giddiness  as  naturally  as  possible — after 
her  quiet  fashion.  The  dark  eyes  sparkled  with 
subdued  pleasure  that  had  no  mean  pride  in  it 
when  she  sat  at  the  head  of  her  great  mahogany 
table,  and  smiled  at  the  double  row  of  bright  faces 
that  hemmed  in  the  gorgeous  display  of  the  Dolph 
silver  and  china  and  fine  linen.  And  it  was  won 
derful  how  charming  were  the  famous  Des  Anges 
manners,  when  they  were  softened  and  sweetened 
by  so  much  grace  and  beauty. 

"Who  would  have  thought  she  had  it  in  her?" 
said  the  young  ladies  down  in  St.  John's  Park. 
"You  remember  her,  don't  you,  what  a  shy  lit 
tle  slip  of  a  thing  she  was  when  we  were  at  old 
Dumesnil's  together?  Who  was  it  used  to  say 
that  she  had  had  the  life  grandmothered  out  of 
her?" 

"Fine  little  creature,  that  wife  of  Dolph 's,"  said 
the  young  men  as  they  strolled  about  in  Niblo's 
Garden.  "Dolph  wouldn't  have  had  the  road  all 
to  himself  if  that  old  dragon  of  a  grandmother  had 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  51 

given  the  girl  half  a  chance.  'Gad,  she's  an  old 
grenadier !  They  say  that  Dolph  had  to  put  her 
through  her  facings  the  day  after  he  was  married, 
and  that  he  did  it  in  uncommon  fine  style,  too." 

"He's  a  lucky  devil,  that  Dolph,"  the  younger 
ones  would  sigh.  "Nothing  to  do,  all  the  money 
he  wants,  pretty  wife,  and  the  best  wine  in  New 
York !  I  wish  my  old  man  would  cut  the  shop  and 
try  to  get  an  education  in  wine." 

Their  devotion  to  the  frivolities  of  fashion  not 
withstanding,  the  young  Dolphs  were  a  loving,  and, 
in  a  way,  a  domestic  couple.  Of  course,  every 
body  they  knew  had  to  give  them  a  dinner  or  a 
ball,  or  pay  them  some  such  social  tribute,  and 
there  were  a  myriad  calls  to  be  received  and  re 
turned;  but  they  found  time  for  retired  commun- 
ings,  even  for  long  drives  in  the  sleigh  which,  many 
a  time  in  young  Jacob  Dolph 's  bachelor  days,  had 
borne  the  young  man  and  a  female  companion — 
not  always  the  same  companion,  either — up  the 
Bloomingdale  Road.  And  in  the  confidences  of 
those  early  days  young  Jacob  learned  what  his 
gentle  little  wife  told  him — without  herself  realiz 
ing  the  pathos  of  it — the  story  of  her  crushed,  un- 
childlike  youth,  loveless  till  he  came,  her  prince, 
her  deliverer.  Dolph  understood  it ;  he  had  known, 
of  course,  that  she  could  not  have  been  happy 
under  the  regime  of  Madam  Des  Anges ;  but  when 
he  heard  the  simple  tale  in  all  its  monotonous 
detail,  and  saw  spread  out  before  him  this  poor 
young  life,  tvith  its  thousand  little  disappoint 
ments,  submissions,  abnegations,  and  undeserved 


52    THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

punishments  and  needless  restrictions,  a  generous 
rage  glowed  in  his  heart,  and  perhaps  sprang  once 
in  a  while  to  his  indiscreet  lips;  and  out  of  this 
grew  a  deeper  and  maturer  tenderness  than  his 
honeymoon  love  for  the  sweet  little  soul  that  he 
had  at  first  sought  only  for  the  dark  eyes  through 
which  it  looked  out  upon  its  joyless  world. 

It  is  unwise  to  speak  in  profane  language,  it  is 
injudicious  to  speak  disrespectfully  of  old  age,  yet 
the  Recording  Angel,  if  he  did  not  see  fit  to  let  a 
tear  fall  upon  the  page,  perchance  found  it  con 
venient  to  be  mending  his  pen  when  young  Jacob 
Dolph  once  uttered  certain  words  that  made  his 
wife  cry  out: 

"Oh,  Jacob,  don't,  please  don't.  She  didn't 
mean  it!" 

This  is  only  a  supposition.  Perhaps  Madam 
Des  Anges  really  had  meant  well.  But  oh,  how 
much  happier  this  world  would  be  if  all  the  people 
who  "mean  well"  and  do  ill  would  only  take  to 
meaning  ill  and  doing  well ! 


Jacob  Dolph  the  elder  took  but  a  doubtful  part 
in  all  the  festivities.  The  cloud  that  had  hung 
dimly  over  him  had  begun  to  show  little  rifts ;  but 
the  dark  masses  between  the  rifts  were  thicker  and 
heavier  than  ever.  It  was  the  last  brief  convul 
sive  struggle  of  the  patient  against  the  power  of 
the  anaesthetic,  when  the  nervous  hand  goes  up  to 
put  the  cloth  away  from  the  mouth,  just  before  the 
work  is  done  and  consciousness  slips  utterly  away, 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  53 

and  life  is  no  more  for  the  sufferer,  though  his 
heart  beat  and  the  breath  be  warm  between  his 
lips. 

When  he  was  bright  he  was  almost  like  his  old 
self,  and  these  delusive  periods  came  of tenest  when 
he  met  some  old  friend,  or  in  quiet  morning  hours 
when  his  daughter — so  he  always  called  her — sat 
at  his  feet  in  the  sunny  breakfast-room,  and  sewed 
and  listened,  or  perhaps  read  to  him  from  Scott's 
latest  novel. 

He  may  have  had  some  faint  sub-consciousness 
of  his  condition,  for  although  he  took  the  deepest 
interest  in  the  balls  and  the  dinners,  he  would 
never  appear  before  his  son's  guests  except  when 
he  was  at  his  best  and  brightest.  But  he  loved  to 
sit,  withdrawn  in  a  corner,  watching  the  young  life 
that  fluttered  through  the  great  rooms,  smiling  to 
himself,  and  gently  pleased  if  some  old  crony 
sought  him  out  and  talked  of  old  times — the  older 
the  times  were,  the  better  he  remembered  them. 
Indeed,  he  now  recalled  some  things  that  he  had 
not  thought  of  since  his  far-off  boyhood. 

In  truth,  the  younger  Dolphs  often  had  small 
heart  in  their  festal  doings.  But  the  medical  sci 
ence  of  the  day,  positive,  self-satisfied,  and  blinded 
by  all  manner  of  tradition,  gave  them,  through  its 
ministers,  cruelly  false  hopes  of  the  old  man's  ulti 
mate  recovery.  Besides,  they  could  not  well  order 
things  otherwise.  The  extravagant  hospitality  of 
the  day  demanded  such  ceremonial,  and  to  have 
abated  any  part  of  it  would  only  have  served  to 
grieve  and  to  alarm  the  object  of  their  care. 


54  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

The  whole  business  was  a  constant  pride  and  joy 
to  old  Mr.  Jacob  Dolph.  When  there  was  a  dinner 
to  be  given,  he  would  follow  Aline  as  she  went 
about  the  house  superintending  the  preparations 
of  her  servants,  in  her  flowered  apron  of  black  silk, 
with  her  bunch  of  keys — honest  keys,  those,  a  good 
four  inches  long,  with  tongues  as  big  as  a  domino 
— jingling  at  her  side.  He  would  himself  overlook 
the  making  ready  of  the  wines,  and  give  oft-re 
peated  instructions  as  to  the  proper  temperature 
for  the  port,  and  see  that  the  champagne  was  put 
on  ice  in  the  huge  octagonal  cellaret  in  the  dining- 
room  corner.  And  when  all  was  ready,  as  like  as 
not  he  would  kiss  Aline  on  the  forehead,  and  say : 

"I  have  a  headache  to-night,  my  dear,  and  I 
think  I  shall  take  my  dinner  in  my  room." 

And  he  would  go  feebly  up  stairs,  and  when  old 
Julius,  who  always  waited  upon  him,  brought  up 
his  tray,  he  would  ask : 

"Is  it  a  fine  dinner,  Julius?  Did  everybody 
come?" 

And  Julius  would  invariably  reply,  with  pro 
found  African  dignity: 

"Mons'us  gran'  dinneh,  seh!  'E  fines'  dinneh 
I  eveh  witness',  seh!  I  have  stood  behin'  you' 
chai',  seh,  this  thutty  y'ah,  an'  I  neveh  see  no  such 
a  gran'  dinneh,  Misteh  Do'ph,  seh!" 

"Except  the  dinner  we  gave  Mr.  Hamilton,  in 
State  Street,  Julius,"  the  old  man  would  put  in. 

"Excep'  that,  seh,"  Julius  would  gravely  reply: 
"that  was  a  pol-litical  dinneh,  seh;  an'  of  co'se,  a 
pol'litical  dinneh — "  an  expressive  pause — "but 


THE  STOBY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE    55 
this  he'  is  sho'ly  a  mons'us  fine  dinneh,  sell." 


His  bodily  vigor  was  unimpaired,  however,  and 
except  that  his  times  of  entire  mental  clearness 
grew  fewer  and  briefer  as  the  months  went  on, 
there  was  little  change  in  the  old  gentleman  when 
the  spring  of  1829  came.  He  was  not  insane,  he 
was  not  idiotic,  even  at  the  worst.  It  seemed  to 
be  simply  a  premature  old  age  that  clouded  his 
faculties.  He  forgot  many  things,  he  was  weakly 
absent-minded,  often  he  did  not  recognize  a  famil 
iar  face,  and  he  seemed  ever  more  and  more  dis 
inclined  to  think  and  to  talk.  He  liked  best  to  sit 
in  silence,  seemingly  unconscious  of  the  world 
about  him ;  and  if  he  was  aroused  from  his  dreamy 
trance,  his  wandering  speech  would  show  that  his 
last  thought — and  it  might  have  entered  his  mind 
hours  before,  at  the  suggestion  of  some  special 
event — was  so  far  back  in  the  past  that  it  dealt 
with  matters  beyond  his  son's  knowledge. 

He  was  allowed  to  do  as  he  pleased,  for  in  the 
common  affairs  of  daily  life  he  seemed  to  be  able 
to  care  for  himself,  and  he  plaintively  resented 
anything  that  looked  like  guardianship.  So  he 
kept  up  his  custom  of  walking  down  into  the  city, 
at  least  as  far  as  St.  Paul's.  It  was  thought  to  be 
safe  enough,  for  he  was  a  familiar  figure  in  the 
town,  and  had  friends  at  every  turn. 

But  one  afternoon  he  did  not  return  in  time  for 
dinner.  Young  Jacob  was  out  for  his  afternoon 
ride,  which  that  day  had  taken  him  in  the  direction 


56  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

of  tlie  good  doctor's  Louse.  And  when  lie  had 
reached  the  house,  he  found  the  doctor  likewise 
mounted  for  a  ride.  The  doctor  was  going  up  to 
Bond  Street — the  Dolphs'  quarter  was  growing 
fashionable  already — to  look  at  a  house  near 
Broadway  that  he  had  some  thoughts  of  buying, 
for  he  was  to  be  married  the  coming  winter.  So 
they  had  ridden  back  together,  and  after  a  long 
examination  of  the  house,  young  Jacob  had  ridden 
off  for  a  gallop  through  the  country  lanes ;  and  it 
was  five  o  'clock,  and  dinner  was  on  the  table,  when 
he  came  to  his  father's  house  and  learned  from 
tearful  Aline  that  his  father  was  missing. 

The  horse  was  at  the  stable  door  when  young 
Jacob  mounted  him  once  more  and  galloped  off  to 
Bond  Street,  where  he  found  the  doctor  just  ready 
to  turn  down  the  Bowery;  and  they  joined  forces 
and  hurried  back,  and  down  Broadway,  inquiring 
of  the  people  who  sat  on  their  front  stoops — it  was 
a  late  spring  evening,  warm  and  fair — if  they  had 
seen  old  Mr.  Dolph  that  day. 

Many  had  seen  him  as  he  went  down ;  but  no  one 
could  remember  that  the  old  gentleman  had  come 
back  over  his  accustomed  path.  At  St.  Paul's,  the 
sexton  thought  that  Mr.  Dolph  had  prolonged  his 
walk  down  the  street.  Further  on,  some  boys  had 
seen  him,  still  going  southward.  The  searchers 
stopped  at  one  or  two  of  the  houses  where  he  might 
have  called ;  but  there  was  no  trace  of  him.  It  was 
long  since  old  Jacob  Dolph  had  made  a  formal  call. 

But  at  Bowling  Green  they  were  hailed  by  Mr. 
Philip  Waters,  who  came  toward  them  with  more 


THE  STOKY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  57 

excitement  in  his  mien  than  a  young  man  of  good 
society  often  exhibited. 

"I  was  going  for  a  carriage,  Dolph,"  he  said: 
"your  father  is  down  there  in  the  Battery  Park, 
and  I'm  afraid — I'm  afraid  he's  had  a  stroke  of 
paralysis." 

They  hurried  down,  and  found  him  lying  on  the 
grass,  his  head  on  the  lap  of  a  dark-skinned,  ear- 
ringed  Spanish  sailor.  He  had  been  seen  to  fall 
from  the  bench  near  by,  another  maritime  man  in 
the  crowd  about  him  explained. 

"It  was  only  a  minit  or  two  ago,"  said  the  hon 
est  seafarer,  swelled  with  the  importance  that  be 
longs  to  the  narrator  of  a  tale  of  accident  and 
disaster.  "He  was  a-settin'  there,  had  been  for 
two  hours  'most,  just  a-starin'  at  them  houses  over 
there,  and  all  of  a  sudden  chuck  forward  he  went, 
right  on  his  face.  And  then  a  man  come  along  that 
knowed  him,  and  said  he'd  go  for  a  kerridge,  or 
I'd  'a'  took  him  on  my  sloop — she's  a-layin'  here 
now,  with  onions  from  Weathersfield — and  treated 
him  well;  I  see  he  wa'n't  no  disrespectable  charac 
ter.  Here,  Pedro,  them's  the  old  man's  folks 
— let  'em  take  him.  A-settin'  there  nigh  on 
two  hours,  he  was,  just  a-studyin'  them  houses. 
B'long  near  here!" 

Young  Jacob  had  no  words  for  the  Connecticut 
captain.  Waters  had  arrived,  with  somebody's 
carriage,  confiscated  on  the  highway,  and  they 
gently  lifted  up  the  old  gentleman  and  set  off 
homeward.  They  were  just  in  time,  for  Waters 
had  been  the  earliest  of  the  evening  promenaders 


58  THE  STOKY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

to  reach  the  Battery.  It  was  dinner  hour — or  sup 
per  hour  for  many — and  the  park  was  given  up  to 
the  lounging  sailors  from  the  river-side  streets. 

The  doctor's  face  was  dark. 

'  '  No,  it  is  not  paralysis, ' '  he  said.  * '  Let  us  pro 
ceed  at  once  to  your  own  home,  Mr.  Dolph.  In 
view  of  what  I  am  now  inclined  to  consider  his  con 
dition,  I  think  it  would  be  the  most  advisable 
course." 

He  was  as  precise  and  exact  in  his  speech  even 
then,  as  he  was  later  on,  when  years  had  given  an 
innocent,  genial  pomposity  to  his  delivery  of  his 
rounded  sentences. 

They  put  old  Jacob  Dolph  to  bed  in  the  room 
which  he  had  always  occupied,  in  his  married  as 
in  his  widowed  days.  He  never  spoke  again ;  that 
day,  indeed,  he  hardly  moved.  But  on  the  next  he 
stirred  uneasily,  as  though  he  were  striving  to 
change  his  position.  The  doctor  bled  him,  and 
they  shifted  him  as  best  they  could,  but  he  seemed 
no  more  comfortable.  So  the  doctor  bled  him 
again;  and  even  that  did  no  good. 

About  sunset,  Aline,  who  had  watched  over  him 
with  hardly  a  moment's  rest,  left  the  room  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  to  listen  to  what  the  doctors 
had  to  say — there  were  four  of  them  in  the  draw 
ing-room  below.  When  she  and  her  husband  en 
tered  the  sick-room  again,  the  old  man  had  moved 
in  his  bed.  He  was  lying  on  his  side,  his  face  to 
the  windows  that  looked  southward,  and  he  had 
raised  himself  a  little  on  his  arm.  There  was  a 
troubled  gaze  in  his  eyes,  as  of  one  who  strains  to 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE    59 

see  something  that  is  unaccountably  missing  from 
his  sight.  He  turned  his  head  a  little,  as  though 
to  listen.  Thus  gazing,  with  an  inward  and  spir 
itual  vision  only,  at  the  bay  that  his  eyes  might 
never  again  see,  and  listening  to  the  waves  whose 
cadence  he  should  hear  no  more,  the  troubled  look 
faded  into  one  of  inscrutable  peace,  and  he  sank 
back  into  the  hollow  of  his  son's  arm  and  passed 
away. 

•  ••••••• 

The  next  time  that  the  doctor  was  in  the  house 
it  was  of  a  snowy  night  a  few  days  after  New 
Year's  Day.  It  was  half -past  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  Jacob  Dolph — no  longer  Jacob  Dolph 
the  younger — had  been  pacing  furiously  up  and 
down  the  long  dining-room — that  being  the  longest 
room  in  the  house — when  the  doctor  came  down 
stairs,  and  addressed  him  with  his  usual  unruffled 
precision : 

"I  will  request  of  you,  Dolph,  a  large  glass  of 
port.  I  need  not  suggest  to  you  that  it  is  unneces 
sary  to  stint  the  measure,  for  the  hospitality  of 
this  house  is " 

"How  is  she,  doctor?  For  God's  sake,  tell  me 
— is  she — is  she " 

"The  hospitality  of  this  house  is  prover — "  the 
precise  doctor  recommenced. 

"Damn  the  hospitality!"  cried  Jacob  Dolph: 
"I  mean — oh,  doctor — tell  me — is  anything 
wrong?" 

'  '  Should  I  request  of  you  the  cup  of  amity  and 
geniality,  Mr.  Dolph,  were  there  cause  for  any- 


60  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

thing  save  rejoicing  in  this  house!"  demanded  the 
physician,  with  amiable  severity.  "I  had  thought 
that  my  words  would  have  conveyed " 

"  It  'sail  over!" 

"And  bravely  over!"  And  the  doctor  nodded 
his  head  with  a  dignified  cheerfulness. 

"And  may  I  go  to  her!" 

"You  may,  sir,  after  you  have  given  me  my  glass 
of  port.  But  remember,  sir " 

Dolph  turned  to  the  sideboard,  grasped  a  bottle 
and  a  glass,  and  thrust  them  into  the  doctor's  hand, 
and  started  for  the  door. 

"But  remember,  sir,"  went  on  the  unperturbed 
physician,  "you  must  not  agitate  or  excite  her.  A 
gentle  step,  a  tranquil  tone,  and  a  cheerful  and  en 
couraging  address,  brief  and  affectionate,  will  be 
all  that  is  permitted." 

Dolph  listened  in  mad  impatience,  and  was  over 
the  threshold  before  the  doctor's  peremptory  call 
brought  him  back. 

"What  is  it  now!"  he  demanded,  impatiently. 

The  doctor  looked  at  him  with  a  gaze  of  wonder 
and  reproach. 

"  It  is  a  male  child,  sir, ' '  he  said. 

Jacob  Dolph  crept  up  the  stairs  on  tiptoe.  As 
he  paused  for  a  moment  in  front  of  a  door  at  the 
head,  he  heard  the  weak,  spasmodic  wail  of  an 
other  Dolph. 


"There's  no  help  for  it— I've  got  to  do  it,"  said 
Jacob  Dolph. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  61 

It  was  another  wintry  morning,  just  after  break 
fast.  The  snow  was  on  the  ground,  and  the  sleigh- 
bells  up  in  Broadway  sent  down  a  faint  jingling. 
Ten  winters  had  come  and  gone,  and  Mr.  Dolph 
was  as  comfortably  stout  as  a  man  should  be  who 
is  well  fed  and  forty.  He  stood  with  his  back  to 
the  fire,  pulling  at  his  whiskers — which  formed 
what  was  earlier  known  as  a  Newgate  collar — with 
his  right  thumb  and  forefinger.  His  left  thumb 
was  stuck  in  the  armhole  of  his  flowered  satin 
waistcoat,  black  and  shiny. 

Opposite  him  sat  a  man  of  his  own  age,  clean 
shaven  and  sharp-featured.  He  had  calm,  some 
what  cold,  gray  eyes,  a  deliberate,  self-contained 
manner  of  speaking,  and  a  pallid,  dry  complexion 
that  suited  with  his  thin  features.  His  dress  was 
plain,  although  it  was  thoroughly  neat.  He  had 
no  flowered  satin  waistcoat ;  but  something  in  his 
bearing  told  you  that  he  was  a  man  who  had  no 
anxiety  about  the  narrow  things  of  the  counting- 
room;  who  had  no  need  to  ask  himself  how  much 
money  was  coming  in  to-morrow.  And  at  the 
same  time  you  felt  that  every  cent  of  whatever 
might  be  to-morrow's  dues  would  find  its  way  to 
his  hands  as  surely  as  the  representative  figures 
stood  on  his  ledger's  page.  It  was  young  Mr.  Van 
Riper-— but  he,  too,  had  lost  his  right  to  that  title, 
not  only  because  of  his  years,  but  because,  in  the 
garret  of  the  house  in  Greenwich  Village,  a  cob 
web  stretched  from  one  of  the  low  beams  to  the 
head  of  old  Abram  Van  Riper 's  great  walking- 
stick,  which  stood  in  the  corner  where  it  had  been 


62  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

placed,  with  other  rubbish,  the  day  after  Abram 
Van  Biper's  funeral. 

"I  should  not  advise  it,  Dolph,  if  it  can  be 
helped, ' '  Mr.  Van  Eiper  observed,  thoughtfully. 

" It  can't  be  helped." 

"I  can  give  you  your  price,  of  course,"  Van 
Eiper  went  on,  with  deliberation;  "but  equally  of 
course,  it  won't  be  anything  like  what  the  property 
will  bring  in  the  course  of  a  few  years. ' ' 

Dolph  kicked  at  the  hearthrug,  as  he  answered, 
somewhat  testily: 

"I'm  not  making  a  speculation  of  it." 

Mr.  Van  Eiper  was  unmoved. 

"And  I'm  not  making  a  speculation  of  you, 
either,"  he  said,  calmly;  "I  am  speaking  only  for 
your  own  benefit,  Dolph." 

Mr.  Dolph  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  strode 
to  the  window  and  back  again,  and  then  said,  with 
an  uneasy  little  laugh : 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Van  Eiper;  you're  quite 
right,  of  course.  The  fact  is,  I've  got  to  do  it.  I 
must  have  the  money,  and  I  must  have  it  now. ' ' 

Mr.  Van  Eiper  stroked  his  sharp  chin. 

"Is  it  necessary  to  raise  the  money  in  that  par 
ticular  way?  You  are  temporarily  embarrassed 
— I  don't  wish  to  be  obtrusive — but  why  not  bor 
row  what  you  need,  and  give  me  a  mortgage  on 
the  house?" 

Ten  years  had  given  Jacob  Dolph  a  certain 
floridity;  but  at  this  he  blushed  a  hot  red. 

"Mortgage  on  the  house?  No,  sir,"  he  said, 
with  emphasis. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  63 

"Well,  any  other  security,  then,"  was  Van 
Riper 's  indifferent  amendment. 

Again  Jacob  Dolph  strode  to  the  window  and 
back  again,  staring  hard  at  the  carpet,  and  knit 
ting  his  brows. 

Mr.  Van  Riper  waited  in  undisturbed  calm  until 
his  friend  spoke  once  more. 

"I  might  as  well  tell  you  the  truth,  Van  Riper," 
he  said,  at  last ;  '  '  I  've  made  a  fool  of  myself.  I  've 
lost  money,  and  I  Ve  got  to  pocket  the  loss.  As  to 
borrowing,  I've  borrowed  all  I  ought  to  borrow. 
I  won't  mortgage  the  house.  This  sale  simply 
represents  the  hole  in  my  capital." 

Something  like  a  look  of  surprise  came  into  Mr. 
Van  Riper 's  wintry  eyes. 

"It's  none  of  my  business,  of  course,"  he 
observed;  "but  if  you  haven't  any  objection  to 
telling  me " 

' l  What  did  it  ?  What  does  for  everybody  nowa 
days?  Western  lands  and  Wall  Street — that's 
about  the  whole  story.  Oh,  yes,  I  know — I  ought 
to  have  kept  out  of  it.  But  I  didn't.  I  was 
nothing  better  than  a  fool  at  such  business.  I'm 
properly  punished. ' ' 

He  sighed  as  he  stood  on  the  hearthrug,  his 
hands  under  his  coat-tails,  and  his  head  hanging 
down.  He  looked  as  though  many  other  thoughts 
were  going  through  his  mind  than  those  which  he 
expressed. 

"I  wish,"  he  began  again,  "that  my  poor  old 
father  had  brought  me  up  to  business  ways.  I 
might  have  kept  out  of  it  all.  College  is  a  good 


64  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

thing  for  a  man,  of  course;  but  college  doesn't 
teach  you  how  to  buy  lots  in  western  cit 
ies — especially  when  the  western  cities  aren't 
built." 

"  College  teaches  you  a  good  many  other  things, 
though,"  said  Van  Eiper,  frowning  slightly,  as  he 
put  the  tips  of  his  long  fingers  together;  "I  wish 
I'd  had  your  chance,  Dolph.  My  boy  shall  go  to 
Columbia,  that's  certain." 

"Your  boy?"  queried  Dolph,  raising  his  eye 
brows. 

Van  Eiper  smiled. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "my  boy.  You  didn't  know  I 
had  a  boy,  did  you  ?  He 's  nearly  a  year  old. ' ' 

This  made  Mr.  Jacob  Dolph  kick  at  the  rug  once 
more,  and  scowl  a  little. 

"I'm  afraid  I  haven't  been  very  neighborly, 
Van  Eiper "  he  began;  but  the  other  inter 
rupted  him,  smiling  good-naturedly. 

"You  and  I  go  different  ways,  Dolph,"  he  said. 
"We're  plain  folks  over  in  Greenwich  Village,  and 
you — you're  a  man  of  fashion." 

Jacob  Dolph  smiled — not  very  mirthfully.  Van 
Eiper 's  gaze  travelled  around  the  room,  quietly 
curious. 

"It  costs  money  to  be  a  man  of  fashion, 
doesn't  it?" 

"Yes,"  said  Dolph,  "it  does." 

There  was  silence  for  a  minute,  which  Van  Eiper 
broke. 

"If  you've  got  to  sell,  Dolph,  why,  it's  a  pity; 
but  I'll  take  it.  I'll  see  Ogden  to-day,  and  we  can 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  65 

finish  the  business  whenever  you  wish.  But  in  my 
opinion,  you'd  do  better  to  borrow." 

Dolph  shook  his  head. 

"I've  been  quite  enough  of  a  fool,"  he  replied. 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Van  Eiper,  rising,  "I  must  get 
to  the  office.  You'll  hear  from  Ogden  to-morrow. 
I'm  sorry  you've  got  into  such  a  snarl;  but — "  his 
lips  stretched  into  something  like  a  smile — "I 
suppose  you'll  know  better  next  time.  Good- 
day." 


After  Mr.  Dolph  had  bowed  his  guest  to  the 
door,  Mrs.  Dolph  slipped  down  the  stairs  and  into 
the  drawing-room. 

"Did  he  take  it?"  she  asked. 

"Of  course  he  took  it,"  Dolph  answered,  bit 
terly,  "at  that  price." 

"Did  he  say  anything,"  she  inquired  again, 
i  '  about  its  being  hard  for  us  to — to  sell  it ! " 

"He  said  we  had  better  not  sell  it  now — that  it 
would  bring  more  a  few  years  hence." 

"He  doesn't  understand,"  said  Mrs.  Dolph. 

"He  couldn't  understand,"  said  Mr.  Dolph. 

Then  she  went  over  to  him  and  kissed  him. 

"It's  only  selling  the  garden,  after  all,"  she 
said;  "it  isn't  like  selling  our  home." 

He  put  his  arm  around  her  waist,  and  they 
walked  into  the  breakfast-room,  and  looked  out  on 
the  garden  which  to-morrow  would  be  theirs  no 
longer,  and  in  a  few  months  would  not  be  a  garden 
at  all. 


66  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

High  walls  hemmed  it  in — the  walls  of  the 
houses  which  had  grown  up  around  them.  A  few 
stalks  stood  up  out  of  the  snow,  the  stalks  of  old- 
fashioned  flowers — hollyhock  and  larkspur  and 
Job's-tears  and  the  like — and  the  lines  of  the  beds 
were  defined  by  the  tiny  hedges  of  box,  with  the 
white  snow-powder  sifted  into  their  dark,  shiny 
green.  The  bare  rose-bushes  were  there,  with 
their  spikes  of  thorns,  and  little  mounds  of  snow 
showed  where  the  glories  of  the  poppy-bed  had 
bloomed. 

Jacob  Dolph,  looking  out,  saw  the  clear  summer 
sunlight  lying  where  the  snow  lay  now.  He  saw 
his  mother  moving  about  the  path,  cutting  a  flower 
here  and  a  bud  there.  He  saw  himself,  a  little  boy 
in  brave  breeches,  following  her  about,  and  looking 
for  the  harmless  toads,  and  working  each  into  one 
of  the  wonderful  legends  which  he  had  heard  from 
the  old  German  gardener  across  the  way.  He  saw 
his  father,  too,  pacing  those  paths  of  summer 
evenings,  when  the  hollyhocks  nodded  their  pink 
heads,  and  glancing  up,  from  time  to  time,  at  his 
mother  as  she  sat  knitting  at  that  very  window. 
And,  last  of  all  in  the  line,  yet  first  in  his  mind,  he 
saw  his  wife  tripping  out  in  the  fresh  morning,  to 
smile  on  the  flowers  she  loved,  to  linger  lovingly 
over  the  beds  of  verbena,  and  to  pick  the  little 
nosegay  that  stood  by  the  side  of  the  tall  coffee- 
urn  at  every  summer-morning  breakfast. 

And  the  wife,  looking  out  by  his  side,  saw  that 
splendid  boy  of  theirs  running  over  path  and  bed, 
glad  of  the  flowers  and  the  air  and  the  freedom, 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  67 

full  of  young  life  and  boyish  sprightliness,  Ms  long 
hair  floating  behind  him,  the  light  of  hope  and 
youth  in  his  bright  face. 

And  to-morrow  it  would  be  Van  Riper 's;  and 
very  soon  there  would  be  houses  there,  to  close  up 
the  friendly  window  which  had  seen  so  much, 
which  had  let  so  much  innocent  joy  and  gladness 
into  the  old  breakfast-room;  and  there  would  be 
an  end  of  flower-bordered  paths  and  nodding 
hollyhocks.  She  put  her  face  upon  her  husband's 
shoulder,  and  cried  a  little,  though  he  pretended 
not  to  know  it.  When  she  lifted  it,  somehow  she 
had  got  her  eyes  dry,  though  they  were  painfully 
bright  and  large. 

"It  isn't  like  selling  our  house,"  she  said. 


IV 


JACOB  DOLPH  got  out  of  the  Broadway  stage 
at  Bowling  Green,  followed  by  Eustace  Dolph. 
Eustace  Dolph  at  twenty-two  was  no  more  like 
his  father  than  his  patrician  name  was  like  simple 
and  scriptural  Jacob.  The  elder  Dolph  was  a  per 
sonable  man,  certainly;  a  handsome  man,  even, 
who  looked  to  be  nearer  forty  than  fifty-two ;  and 
he  was  well  dressed — perhaps  a  trifle  out  of  the 
mode — and  carried  himself  with  a  certain  genial 
dignity,  and  with  the  lightness  of  a  man  who  has 
not  forgotten  that  he  has  been  a  buck  in  his  time. 
But  Eustace  was  distinctly  and  unmistakably  a 
dandy.  There  are  superficial  differences,  of 
course,  between  the  dandy  of  1852  and  the  dandy 
of  1887 ;  but  the  structural  foundation  of  all  types 
of  dandy  is  the  same  through  all  ages.  Back  of 
the  clothes — back  of  the  ruffles,  or  the  bright  neck 
cloth,  or  the  high  pickardil — which  may  vary  with 
the  time  or  the  individual,  you  will  ever  find 
clearly  displayed  to  your  eyes  the  obvious  and 
unmistakable  spiritual  reason  for  and  cause  of  the 
dandy — and  it  is  always  self-assertion  pushed 
beyond  the  bounds  of  self-respect. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  young  Eustace's  gar 
ments  were  not  really  worse  than  many  a  man  has 
worn  from  simple,  honest  bad  taste.  To  be  sure, 

68 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  69 

the  checked  pattern  of  his  trousers  was  for  size 
like  the  design  of  a  prison  grating ;  he  had  a  coat 
so  blue  that  it  shimmered  in  the  sunlight ;  his  neck 
tie  was  of  purple  satin,  and  fearfully  and  wonder 
fully  made  and  fringed,  and  decked  with  gems  fast 
ened  by  little  gold  chains  to  other  inferior  guard 
ian  gems ;  and  his  waistcoat  was  conf  ected  of  satin 
and  velvet  and  damask  all  at  once ;  yet  you  might 
have  put  all  these  things  on  his  father,  and, 
although  the  effect  would  not  have  been  pleasant, 
you  would  never  have  called  the  elder  gentleman  a 
dandy.  In  other  words,  it  was  Why  young 
Eustace  wore  his  raiment  that  made  it  dandified, 
and  not  the  inherent  gorgeousness  of  the  raiment 
itself. 

The  exchange  of  attire  might  readily  have  been 
made,  so  far  as  the  size  of  the  two  men  was  con 
cerned.  But  only  in  size  were  they  alike.  There 
was  nothing  of  the  Dolph  in  Eustace's  face.  He 
bore,  indeed,  a  strong  resemblance  to  his  maternal 
great-grandmother,  now  many  years  put  away 
where  she  could  no  longer  trouble  the  wicked,  and 
where  she  had  to  let  the  weary  be  at  rest.  (And 
how  poor  little  Aline  had  wept  and  wailed  over 
that  death,  and  lamented  that  she  had  not  been 
more  dutiful  as  a  child!)  But  his  face  was  not 
strong,  as  the  face  of  Madam  Des  Anges  had  been. 
Some  strain  of  a  weaker  ancestry  reappeared  in  it, 
and,  so  to  speak,  changed  the  key  of  the  expres 
sion.  What  had  been  pride  in  the  old  lady  bor 
dered  on  superciliousness  in  the  young  man. 
What  had  been  sternness  became  a  mere  haughti- 


70  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

ness.  Yet  it  was  a  handsome  face,  and  pleasant, 
too,  when  the  young  smile  came  across  it,  and  you 
saw  the  white,  small  teeth  and  the  bright,  intelli 
gent  light  in  the  dark  eyes. 

The  two  men  strolled  through  the  Battery,  and 
then  up  South  Street,  and  so  around  through  Old 
Slip.  They  were  on  business ;  but  this  was  also  a 
pleasure  trip  to  the  elder.  He  walked  doubly  in 
spirit  through  those  old  streets — a  boy  by  his 
father's  side,  a  father  with  his  son  at  his  elbow. 
He  had  not  been  often  in  the  region  of  late  years. 
You  remember,  he  was  a  man  of  pleasure.  He 
was  one  of  the  first-fruits  of  metropolitan  growth 
and  social  culture.  His  father  had  made  an  idler 
and  dilettante  of  him.  It  was  only  half  a  life  at 
best,  he  thought,  happy  as  he  had  been ;  blessed  as 
he  was  in  wife  and  child.  He  was  going  to  make 
a  business  man  of  his  own  boy.  After  all,  it  was 
through  the  workers  that  great  cities  grew.  Per 
haps  we  were  not  ripe  yet  for  that  European 
institution,  the  idler.  He  himself  had  certain 
accomplishments  that  other  Americans  had  not. 
He  could  fldner,  for  instance.  But  to  have  to 
fldner  through  fifty  or  sixty  or  seventy  years 
palled  on  the  spirit,  he  found.  And  one  thing  was 
certain,  if  any  Dolph  was  ever  to  be  an  accom 
plished  flaneur,  and  to  devote  his  whole  life  to  that 
occupation,  the  Dolph  fortune  must  be  vastly 
increased.  Old  Jacob  Dolph  had  miscalculated. 
The  sum  he  had  left  in  1829  might  have  done  very 
well  for  the  time,  but  it  was  no  fortune  to  idle  on 
among  the  fashionables  of  1852. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  71 

Something  of  this  Mr.  Dolph  told  his  son;  but 
the  young  man,  although  he  listened  with  respect 
ful  attention,  appeared  not  to  take  a  deep  interest 
in  his  father's  reminiscences.  Jacob  Dolph 
fancied  even  that  Eustace  did  not  care  to  be 
reminded  of  the  city's  day  of  small  things. 
Perhaps  he  had  something  of  the  feeling  of  the 
successful  straggler  who  tries  to  forget  the  shab- 
biness  of  the  past.  If  this  were  the  case,  his  pride 
must  have  been  chafed,  for  his  father  was  eloquent 
in  displaying  the  powers  of  an  uncommonly  fine 
memory;  and  he  had  to  hear  all  about  the  slips, 
and  the  Fly  Market,  and  the  gradual  extension  of 
the  water-front,  and  the  piles  on  which  the  old 
Tontine  was  built,  and  the  cucumber-wood  pipes 
of  the  old  water-company,  still  lying  under  their 
feet.  Once,  at  least,  he  showed  a  genuine  enjoy 
ment  of  his  father's  discourse,  and  that  was  when 
it  ran  on  the  great  retinue  of  servants  in  which 
Jacob  Dolph  the  elder  had  indulged  himself.  I 
think  he  was  actually  pleased  when  he  heard  that 
his  grandfather  had  at  one  time  kept  slaves. 

Wandering  in  this  way,  to  the  running  accom 
paniment  of  Mr.  Dolph 's  lecture,  they  came  to 
Water  Street,  and  here,  as  though  he  were 
reminded  of  the  object  of  their  trip,  the  father 
summed  up  his  reminiscences  in  shape  for  a  neat 
moral. 

"The  city  grows,  you  see,  my  boy,  and  we've  got 
to  grow  with  it.  I  Ve  stood  still ;  but  you  shan  't. ' ' 

"Well,  governor,"  said  the  younger  man,  "I'll 
be  frank  with  you.  I  don't  like  the  prospect." 


72  THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

"You  will — you  will,  my  boy.  You'll  live  to 
thank  me." 

"Very  likely  you're  right,  sir;  I  don't  deny  it; 
but,  as  I  say,  I  don't  like  the  prospect.  I  don't 
see — with  all  due  respect,  sir — how  any  gentleman 
can  like  trade.  It  may  be  necessary,  and  of  course 
I  don't  think  it's  lowering,  or  any  of  that  nonsense, 
you  know;  but  it  can't  be  pleasant.  Of  course,  if 
your  governor  had  to  do  it,  it  was  all  right ;  but  I 
don't  believe  he  liked  it  any  better  than  I  should, 
or  he  wouldn't  have  been  so  anxious  to  keep  you 
out  of  it." 

"My  poor  father  made  a  great  mistake,  Eustace. 
He  would  admit  it  now,  I'm  sure,  if  he  were  alive." 

"Well,  sir,  I'm  going  to  try  it,  of  course.  I'll 
give  it  a  fair  trial.  But  when  the  two  years  are 
up,  sir,  as  we  agreed,  I  hope  you  won't  say  any 
thing  against  my  going  into  the  law,  or — well, 
yes — "  he  colored  a  little — "trying  what  I  can 
do  on  the  Street.  I  know  what  you  think  about  it, 
sir,"  he  went  on,  hastily;  "but  there  are  two  sides 
to  the  question,  and  it's  my  opinion  that,  for  an 
intelligent  man,  there's  more  money  to  be  made 
up  there  in  Wall  Street  in  one  year  than  can  be 
got  out  of  haggling  over  merchandise  for  a  life 
time." 

Jacob  Dolph  grew  red  in  the  face  and  shook  his 
head  vigorously. 

"Don't  speak  of  it,  sir,  don't  speak  of  it!"  he 
said,  vehemently.  "It's  the  curse  of  the  country. 
If  you  have  any  such  infernal  opinions,  don't  vent 
them  in  my  presence,  sir.  I  know  what  I  am  talk- 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  73 

ing  about.    Keep  clear  of  Wall  Street,  sir.    It  is 
the  straight  road  to  perdition. " 

They  entered  one  of  a  row  of  broad-fronted 
buildings  of  notable  severity  and  simplicity  of 
architecture.  Four  square  stone  columns  upheld 
its  brick  front,  and  on  one  of  these  faded  gilt 
letters,  on  a  ground  of  dingy  black,  said  simply : 

ABRAM  VAN  RIPER'S  SON. 

There  was  no  further  announcement  of  Abram 
Van  Riper 's  Son's  character,  or  of  the  nature  of 
his  business.  It  was  assumed  that  all  people  knew 
who  Abram  Van  Riper 's  Son  was,  and  that  his 
(Abram  Van  Riper 's)  ship-chandlery  trade  had 
long  before  grown  into  a  great  "commission  mer 
chant's"  business. 

It  was  full  summer,  and  there  were  no  doors 
between  the  pillars  to  bar  entrance  to  the  gloomy 
cavern  behind  them,  which  stretched  in  semi- 
darkness  the  whole  length  and  width  of  the  build 
ing,  save  for  a  narrow  strip  at  the  rear,  where, 
behind  a  windowed  partition,  clerks  were  writing 
at  high  desks,  and  where  there  was  an  inner  and 
more  secluded  pen  for  Abram  Van  Riper 's  son. 

In  the  front  of  the  cave,  to  one  side,  was  a  hoist- 
way,  where  bales  and  boxes  were  drawn  up  from 
the  cellar  or  swung  twisting  and  twirling  to  the 
lofts  above.  Amidships  the  place  was  strewn 
with  small  tubs,  matting-covered  bales  and  boxes, 
coils  of  bright  new  rope,  and  odd-looking  packages 
of  a  hundred  sorts,  all  of  them  with  gaping  wounds 


74  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

in  their  envelopes,  or  otherwise  having  their 
pristine  integrity  wounded.  From  this  it  was  not 
difficult  to  guess  that  these  were  samples  of  mer 
chandise.  Most  of  them  gave  forth  odors  upon 
the  air,  odors  ranging  from  the  purely  aromatic, 
suggestive  of  Oriental  fancies  or  tropic  dreams  of 
spice,  to  the  positively  offensive — the  latter  varie 
ties  predominating. 

But  certain  objects  upon  a  long  table  were  so 
peculiar  in  appearance  that  the  visitors  could  not 
pass  them  by  with  a  mere  glance  of  wonder.  They 
looked  like  small  leather  pies,  badly  warped  in  the 
baking.  A  clerk  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  with  his 
straw  hat  on  one  side  of  his  head,  whistled  as  he 
cut  into  these,  revealing  a  livid  interior,  the  color 
of  half-cooked  veal,  which  he  inspected  with  care. 
Eustace  was  moved  to  positive  curiosity. 

' 1 What  are  they?"  he  inquired  of  the  clerk, 
pride  mingling  with  disgust  in  his  tone,  as  he 
caught  a  smell  like  unto  the  smell  which  might 
arise  from  raw  smoked  salmon  that  had  lain  three 
days  in  the  sun. 

"Central  American,"  responded  the  clerk,  with 
brevity,  and  resumed  his  whistling  of 

"My  name  is  Jake  Keyset,  I  was  born  in  Spring  Garden; 
To  make  me  a  preacher  my  father  did  try." 

"Central  American  what?"  pursued  the 
inquirer. 

"Rubier!"  said  the  clerk,  with  a  scorn  so  deep 
and  far  beyond  expression  that  the  combined  pride 
of  the  Dolphs  and  the  Des  Anges  wilted  into 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  75 

silence  for  the  moment.  As  they  went  on  toward 
the  rear  office,  while  the  clerk  gayly  whistled  the 
notes  of 

' '  It 's  no  use  a-blowing,  for  I  am  a  hard  'un — 
I  'm  bound  to  be  a  butcher,  by  heavens,  or  die !  " 

Eustace  recovered  sufficiently  to  demand  of  his 
father : 

"I  say,  sir,  shall  I  have  to  handle  that  damned 
stuff ?" 

"Hush!"  said  his  senior;  "here's  Mr.  Van 
Riper." 

Mr.  Van  Riper  came  to  the  office  door  to  wel 
come  them,  with  his  thin  face  set  in  the  form  of  a 
smile. 

"Ah!"  he  said,  "here's  the  young  man,  is  he? 
Fine  big  fellow,  Dolph.  Well,  sir,  so  you  are 
going  to  embrace  a  mercantile  career,  are  you? 
That's  what  they  call  it  in  these  fine  days,  Dolph." 

"I  am  going  to  try  to,  sir,"  replied  the  young 
man. 

1 '  He  will,  Van  Riper, ' '  put  in  his  father,  hastily ; 
"he'll  like  it  as  soon  as  he  gets  used  to  it — I  know 
he  will." 

"Well,"  returned  Mr.  Van  Riper,  with  an 
attempt  at  facetious  geniality,  "we'll  try  to  get  his 
nose  down  to  the  grindstone,  we  will.  Come  into 
my  office  with  me,  Dolph,  and  I'll  hand  this  young 
gentleman  over  to  old  Mr.  Daw.  Mr.  Daw  will 
feel  his  teeth — eh,  Mr.  Daw? — see  what  he  doesn't 
know — how's  that — Mr.  Daw?  You  remember 
Mr.  Daw,  Dolph — used  to  be  with  your  father 


76  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

before  lie  went  out  of  business — been  with  us  ever 
since.  Let's  see,  how  long  is  that,  Daw?  Most 
fifty  years,  ain't  it?" 

Mr.  Daw,  who  looked  as  though  he  might  have 
been  one  hundred  years  at  the  business,  wheeled 
around  and  descended  with  stiff  deliberation  from 
his  high  stool,  holding  his  pen  in  his  mouth  as  he 
solemnly  shook  hands  with  Jacob  Dolph,  and 
peered  into  his  face.  Then  he  took  the  pen  from 
his  mouth. 

" Looks  like  his  father,"  was  Mr.  Daw's  com 
ment.  "Forty-five  years  the  twenty-ninth  of  this 
month,  sir.  You  was  a  little  shaver  then.  I 
remember  you  comin'  into  the  store  and  whittlin' 
timber  with  your  little  jack-knife.  I  was  only 
eleven  years  with  your  father,  sir — eleven  years 
and  six  months — went  to  him  when  I  was  fourteen 
years  old.  That's  fifty-six  years  and  six  months 
in  the  service  of  two  of  the  best  houses  that  ever 
was  in  New  York — an'  I  can  do  my  work  with  any 
two  young  shavers  in  the  town — ain't  missed  a  day 
in  nineteen  years  now.  Your  father  hadn't  never 
ought  to  have  gone  out  of  business,  Mr.  Dolph. 
He  did  a  great  business  for  those  days,  and  he  had 
the  makin'  of  a  big  house.  Goin'  to  bring  your 
boy  up  like  a  good  New  York  merchant,  hey! 
Come  along  with  me,  young  man,  and  I'll  see  if 
you're  half  the  man  your  grandfather  was.  He 
hadn't  never  ought  to  have  given  up  business,  Mr. 
Dolph.  But  he  was  all  for  pleasuring  an'  the 
playhouses,  an'  havin'  fine  times.  Come  along, 
young  man.  What's  your  name?" 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  77 

"  Eustace  Dolph." 

"Hm!    Jacob's  better." 

And  he  led  the  neophyte  away. 

' '  Curious  old  case, ' '  said  Mr.  Van  Riper,  dryly. 
"Best  accountant  in  New  York.  See  that  high 
stool  of  his  1 — can't  get  him  off  it.  Five  years  ago 
I  gave  him  a  low  desk  and  an  armchair.  In  one 
week  he  was  back  again,  roosting  up  there.  Said 
he  didn't  feel  comfortable  with  his  feet  on  the 
ground.  He  thought  that  sort  of  thing  might  do 
for  aged  people,  but  he  wasn't  made  of  cotton- 
batting." 

Thus  began  Eustace  Dolph 's  apprenticeship  to 
business,  and  mightily  ill  he  liked  it. 


There  came  a  day,  a  winter  day  in  1854,  when 
there  was  a  great  agitation  among  what  were  then 
called  the  real  old  families  of  New  York.  I  cannot 
use  the  term  "fashionable  society,"  because  that 
is  more  comprehensive,  and  would  include  many 
wealthy  and  ambitious  families  from  New  Eng 
land,  who  were  decidedly  not  of  the  Dolphs'  set. 
And  then,  the  Dolphs  could  hardly  be  reckoned 
among  the  leaders  of  fashion.  To  live  on  or  near 
the  boundaries  of  fashion's  domain  is  to  lower 
your  social  status  below  the  absolute  pitch  of  per 
fection,  and  fashion  in  1854  drew  the  line  pretty 
sharply  at  Bleecker  Street.  Above  Bleecker 
Street  the  cream  of  the  cream  rose  to  the  surface ; 
below,  you  were  ranked  as  skim  milk.  The  social 
world  was  spreading  up  into  the  wastes  sacred  to 


78  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

the  circus  and  the  market-garden,  although,  if 
Admiral  Farragut  had  stood  on  his  sea-legs  where 
he  stands  now,  he  might  have  had  a  fairly  clear 
view  of  Chelsea  Village,  and  seen  Alonzo  Gush- 
man  II.,  or  Alonzo  Cushman  III.,  perhaps,  going 
around  and  collecting  his  rents. 

But  the  old  families  still  fought  the  tide  of  trade, 
many  of  them  neck-deep  and  very  uncomfortable. 
They  would  not  go  from  St.  John's  Park,  nor  from 
North  Moore  and  Grand  Streets.  They  had  not 
the  bourgeois  conservatism  of  the  Greenwich  'Vil 
lagers,  which  has  held  them  in  a  solid  phalanx 
almost  to  this  very  day;  but  still,  in  a  way,  they 
resented  the  up-town  movement,  and  resisted  it. 
So  that  when  they  did  have  to  buy  lots  in  the  high- 
numbered  streets  they  had  to  pay  a  fine  price  for 
them. 

It  was  this  social  party  that  was  stirred  by  a 
bit  of  scandal  about  the  Dolphs.  I  do  not  know 
why  I  should  call  it  scandal ;  yet  I  am  sure  society 
so  held  it.  For  did  not  society  whisper  it,  and  nod 
and  wink  over  it,  and  tell  it  in  dark  corners,  and 
chuckle,  and  lift  its  multitudinous  hands  and  its 
myriad  eyebrows,  and  say  in  innumerable  keys: 
"Well,  upon  my  word!"  and  "Well,  I  should 

think !"  and  "Who  would  ever  have  thought 

of  such  a  thing! "  and  the  like?  Did  not  society 
make  very  funny  jokes  about  it,  and  did  not 
society's  professional  gossips  get  many  an  invita 
tion  to  dinner  because  they  professed  to  have 
authentic  details  of  the  way  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dolph 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE    79 

looked  when  they  spoke  about  it,  and  just  what 
they  had  to  say  for  themselves  ? 

And  yet  it  was  nothing  more  than  this,  that  Mr. 
Dolph,  being  fifty-four,  and  his  wife  but  a  few 
years  younger,  were  about  to  give  to  the  world 
another  Dolph.  It  was  odd,  I  admit;  it  was 
unusual;  if  I  must  go  so  far,  it  was,  I  suppose, 
unconventional.  But  I  don't  see  that  it  was  neces 
sary  for  Mr.  Philip  Waters  to  make  an  epigram 
about  it.  It  was  a  very  clever  epigram ;  but  if  you 
had  seen  dear  old  Mrs.  Dolph,  with  her  rosy  cheeks 
and  the  gray  in  her  hair,  knitting  baby-clothes 
with  hands  which  were  still  white  and  plump  and 
comely,  while  great  dark  eyes  looked  timorously 
into  the  doubtful,  fear-clouded  future,  I  think  you 
would  have  been  ashamed  that  you  had  even 
listened  to  that  epigram. 

The  expected  event  was  of  special  and  personal 
interest  to  only  three  people — for,  after  all,  when 
you  think  of  it,  it  was  not  exactly  society's  busi 
ness — and  it  affected  them  in  widely  different 
ways. 

Jacob  Dolph  was  all  tenderness  to  his  wife,  and 
all  sympathy  with  her  fears,  with  her  nervous 
apprehensions,  even  with  her  morbid  forebodings 
of  impossible  ills.  He  did  not  repine  at  the  seclu 
sion  which  the  situation  forced  upon  them, 
although  his  life  for  years  had  been  given  up  to 
society's  demands,  until  pleasure-seeking  and 
pleasure-giving  had  grown  into  a  routine,  which 
occupied  his  whole  mind.  His  wife  saw  him  more 


80  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

than  she  had  for  many  years.  Clubs  and  card- 
parties  had  few  temptations  for  him  now;  he  sat 
at  home  and  read  to  her  and  talked  to  her,  and  did 
his  best  to  follow  the  injunctions  of  the  doctor,  and 
"create  and  preserve  in  her  a  spirit  of  cheerful 
and  hopeful  tranquillity,  free  of  unnecessary 
apprehension. ' ' 

But  when  he  did  go  to  the  club,  when  he  was  in 
male  society,  his  breast  expanded,  and  if  he  had  to 
answer  a  polite  inquiry  as  to  Mrs.  Dolph's  health, 
I  am  afraid  that  he  responded:  "Mrs.  Dolph  is 
extremely  well,  sir,  extremely  well!"  with  a  pride 
which  the  moralists  will  tell  you  is  baseless, 
unworthy,  and  unreasonable. 

As  for  Aline  herself,  no  one  may  know  what 
timorous  hopes  stirred  in  her  bosom  and  charmed 
the  years  away,  and  brought  back  to  her  a  lovely 
youth  that  was  almost  girlish  in  its  innocent,  half- 
frightened  gladness.  Outside,  this  great,  wise, 
eminently  proper  world  that  she  lived  in  girded  at 
the  old  woman  who  was  to  bear  a  child,  and 
laughed  behind  tasselled  fans,  and  made  wondrous 
merry  over  Nature's  work;  but  within  the  old 
house  she  sat,  and  sewed  upon  the  baby-clothes,  or, 
wandering  from  cupboard  to  cupboard,  found  the 
yellowing  garments,  laid  away  more  than  a  score 
of  years  before — the  poor  little  lace-decked  trifles 
that  her  first  boy  had  worn;  and  she  thanked 
heaven,  in  her  humble  way,  that  twenty-four  years 
had  not  taken  the  love  and  joy  of  a  wife  and  a 
mother  out  of  her  heart. 

She  could  not  find  all  her  boy's  dresses  and  toys, 


THE  STOIiY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE    81 

for  she  was  open-handed,  and  had  given  many  of 
them  away  to  people  who  needed  them.  This 
brought  about  an  odd  encounter.  The  third  per 
son  who  had  a  special  interest  in  the  prospect  of 
the  birth  of  a  Dolph  was  young  Eustace,  and  he 
found  nothing  in  it  wherewith  to  be  pleased.  For 
Eustace  Dolph  was  of  the  ultra-fashionables.  He 
cared  less  for  old  family  than  for  new  ideas,  and 
he  did  not  let  himself  fall  behind  in  the  march  of 
social  progress,  even  though  he  was,  as  he 
admitted  with  humility  born  of  pride,  only  a  poor 
devil  of  a  down-town  clerk.  If  his  days  were  occu 
pied,  he  had  his  nights  to  himself,  and  he  length 
ened  them  to  suit  himself.  At  first  this  caused  his 
mother  to  fret  a  little;  but  poor  Aline  had  come 
into  her  present  world  from  the  conventional 
seclusion  of  King's  Bridge,  and  her  only  authority 
on  questions  of  masculine  license  was  her  husband. 
He,  being  appealed  to,  had  to  admit  that  his  own 
hours  in  youth  had  been  late,  and  that  he  supposed 
the  hours  of  a  newer  generation  should  properly 
be  later  still.  Mr.  Dolph  forgot,  perhaps,  that 
while  his  early  potations  had  been  vinous,  those  of 
the  later  age  were  distinctly  spirituous ;  and  that 
the  early  morning  cocktail  and  the  midnight 
brandy-and-soda  were  abominations  unknown  to 
his  own  well-bred  youth.  With  port  and  sherry 
and  good  Bordeaux  he  had  been  familiar  all  his 
life ;  a  dash  of  liqueur  after  dinner  did  not  trouble 
his  digestion;  he  found  a  bottle  of  champagne  a 
pleasant  appetizer  and  a  gentle  stimulant;  but 
whiskey  and  gin  were  to  him  the  drinks  of  the 


82  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

vulgar;  and  rum  and  brandy  stood  on  his  side 
board  only  to  please  fiercer  tastes  than  his  own. 
Perhaps,  also,  he  was  ignorant  of  the  temptations 
that  assail  a  young  man  in  a  great  city,  he  who  had 
grown  up  in  such  a  little  one  that  he  had  at  one 
time  known  every  one  who  was  worth  knowing 
in  it.  t 

However  this  may  have  been,  Eustace  Dolph 
ruled  for  himself  his  going  out  and  his  coming  in. 
He  went  further,  and  chose  his  own  associates,  not 
always  from  among  the  scions  of  the  "old  fami 
lies."  He  found  those  excellent  young  men 
'  *  slow, ' '  and  he  selected  for  his  own  private  circle 
a  set  which  was  mixed  as  to  origin  and  unani 
mously  frivolous  as  to  tendency.  The  foreign 
element  was  strongly  represented.  Bright  young 
Irishmen  of  excellent  families,  and  mysterious 
French  and  Italian  counts  and  marquises,  bor 
rowed  many  of  the  good  gold  dollars  of  the  Dolphs, 
and  forgot  to  return  an  equivalent  in  the  local 
currency  of  the  O'Reagans  of  Castle  Reagan,  or 
the  D  'Arcy  de  Montmorenci,  or  the  Montescudi  di 
Bajocchi.  Among  this  set  there  was  much  merry 
making  when  the  news  from  the  Dolph  household 
sifted  down  to  them  from  the  gossip- sieve  of  the 
best  society.  They  could  not  very  well  chaff 
young  Dolph  openly,  for  he  was  muscular  and 
high-tempered,  and,  under  the  most  agreeable  con 
ditions,  needed  a  fight  of  some  sort  every  six 
months  or  so,  and  liked  a  bit  of  trouble  in  between 
fights.  But  a  good  deal  of  low  and  malicious 
humor  came  his  way,  from  one  source  or  another, 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE    83 

and  he,  with  the  hot  and  concentrated  egotism  of 
youth,  thought  that  he  was  in  a  ridiculous  and  try 
ing  position,  and  chafed  over  it. 

There  had  been  innuendos  and  hints  and  glanc 
ing  allusions,  but  no  one  had  dared  to  make  any 
direct  assault  of  wit,  until  one  evening  young 
Haskins  came  into  the  club  "a  little  flushed  with 
wine."  (The  "wine"  was  brandy.)  It  seems 
that  young  Haskins  had  found  at  home  an  ivory 
rattle  which  had  belonged  to  Eustace  twenty  years 
before,  and  which  Mrs.  Dolph  had  given  to  Mrs. 
Haskins  when  Eustace  enlarged  his  horizon  in  the 
matter  of  toys. 

Haskins  being,  as  I  have  said,  somewhat  flushed 
with  brandy,  came  up  to  young  Dolph,  who  was 
smoking  in  the  window,  and  meditating  with 
frowning  brows,  and  said  to  him : 

"Here,  Dolph,  I've  done  with  this.  You'd  bet 
ter  take  it  back — it  .may  be  wanted  down  your 
way." 

There  was  a  scene.  Fortunately,  two  men  were 
standing  just  behind  Dolph,  who  were  able  to 
throw  their  arms  about  him,  and  hold  him  back  for 
a  few  seconds.  There  would  have  been  further 
consequences,  however,  if  it  had  not  been  that 
Eustace  was  in  the  act  of  throwing  the  rattle  back 
at  Haskins  when  the  two  men  caught  him.  Thus 
the  toy  went  wide  of  its  mark,  and  fell  in  the  lap  of 
Philip  Waters,  who,  old  as  he  was,  generally  chose 
to  be  in  the  company  of  the  young  men  at  the  club ; 
and  then  Philip  Waters  did  something  that  almost 
atones,  I  think,  for  the  epigram. 


84  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

He  looked  at  the  date  on  the  rattle,  and  then  he 
rose  up  and  went  between  the  two  young  men,  and 
spoke  to  Haskins. 

" Young  man,"  he  said,  "when  Mrs.  Jacob 
Dolph  gave  your  mother  this  thing,  your  father 
had  just  failed  for  the  second  time  in  three  years. 
He  had  come  to  New  York  about  five  years  before 
from  Hartford,  or  Providence,  or — Succotash,  or 
whatever  his  confounded  town  was.  Mr.  Jacob 
Dolph  got  Mr.  Van  Eiper  to  give  your  father  an 
extension  on  his  note,  or  he  would  have  gone  to  the 
debtors '  prison  down  by  the  City  Hall.  As  it  was, 
he  had  to  sell  his  house,  and  the  coat  off  his  back, 
for  all  I  know.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  the  Dolphs, 
devil  the  rattle  you'd  have  had,  and  you  wouldn't 
have  been  living  in  Bond  Street  to-day." 

After  which  Mr.  Philip  Waters  sat  down  and 
read  the  evening  paper ;  and  when  young  Haskins 
was  able  to  speak  he  asked  young  Dolph 's  pardon, 
and  got  it — at  least,  a  formal  assurance  that  he 
had  it. 

The  baby  was  born  in  the  spring,  and  everybody 
said  she  was  the  image  of  her  mother. 


There  will  come  a  day,  it  may  be,  when  advanc 
ing  civilization  will  civilize  sleighing  out  of  exist 
ence,  as  far  as  New  York  is  concerned.  Year 
after  year  the  days  grow  fewer  that  will  let  a 
cutter  slip  up  beyond  the  farthest  of  the  "road- 
houses"  and  cross  the  line  into  Westchester. 
People  say  that  the  climate  is  changing ;  but  close 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  85 

observers  recognize  a  sympathy  between  the 
decrease  of  snow-storms  and  the  increase  of  refine 
ment — that  is,  a  sympathy  in  inverse  ratio;  a 
balanced  progress  in  opposite  directions.  As  we 
grow  further  and  further  beyond  even  old-world 
standards  of  polite  convention,  as  we  formalize 
and  super-formalize  our  codes,  and  steadily  elimi 
nate  every  element  of  amusement  from  our 
amusements,  Nature  in  strict  conformity  represses 
her  joyous  exuberance.  The  snow-storm  of  the 
past  is  gone,  because  the  great  public  sleigh  that 
held  twenty-odd  merrymakers  in  a  shell  like  a 
circus  band-wagon  has  gone  out  of  fashion  among 
all  classes.  Now  we  have,  during  severe  winters, 
just  enough  snow  from  time  to  time  to  bear  the 
light  sleigh  of  the  young  man  who,  being  in  good 
society,  is  also  horsy.  When  he  finds  the  road 
vulgar,  the  poor  plebeian  souls  who  go  sleighing 
for  the  sport  of  it  may  sell  their  red  and  blue 
vehicles,  for  Nature,  the  sycophant  of  fashion,  will 
snow  no  more. 

But  they  had  "good  old-fashioned"  snow 
storms  eighty  years  after  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  and  one  had  fallen  upon  New  York  that 
tempted  Mrs.  Jacob  Dolph  to  leave  her  baby,  ten 
months  old,  in  the  nurse's  charge,  and  go  out  with 
her  husband  in  the  great  family  sleigh  for  what 
might  be  the  last  ride  of  the  season. 

They  had  been  far  up  the  road — to  Arcularius  's, 
maybe,  there  swinging  around  and  whirling  back. 
They  had  flown  down  the  long  country  road,  and 
back  into  the  city,  to  meet — it  was  early  in  the 


86  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

day — the  great  procession  of  sleighing  folk 
streaming  northward  up  Broadway.  It  was  one 
of  New  York's  great,  irregular,  chance-set  carni 
vals,  and  every  sleigh  was  out,  from  the  "exqui 
site's"  gilded  chariot,  a  shell  hardly  larger  than  a 
fair-sized  easy-chair,,  to  the  square,  low-hung  red 
sledge  of  the  butcher-boy,  who  braved  it  with  the 
fashionables,  his  Schneider -made  clothes  on  his 
burly  form,  and  his  girl  by  his  side,  in  her  best 
Bowery  bonnet.  Everybody  was  a-sleighing. 
The  jingle  of  countless  bells  fell  on  the  crisp  air  in 
a  sort  of  broken  rhythm — a  rude  tempo  rubato. 
It  was  fashionable  then.  But  we — we  amuse  our 
selves  less  boisterously. 

They  drew  up  at  the  door  of  the  Dolph  house, 
and  Jacob  Dolph  lifted  his  wife  out  of  the  sleigh, 
and  carried  her  up  the  steps  into  the  breakfast- 
room,  and  set  her  down  in  her  easy-chair.  He  was 
bending  over  her  to  ask  her  if  her  ride  had  done 
her  good,  when  a  servant  entered  and  handed  him 
a  letter  marked  "  Immediate. " 

He  read  it,  and  all  the  color  of  the  winter 's  day 
faded  out  of  his  face. 

"I've  got  to  go  down  to  Van  Riper 's,"  he  said, 
*  *  at  once ;  he  wants  me. ' ' 

"Has  anything  happened  to — to  Eustace  I"  his 
wife  cried  out. 

"He  doesn't  say  so — I  suppose — I  suppose  it's 
only  business  of  some  sort,"  her  husband  said. 
His  face  was  white.  "Don't  detain  me,  dear. 
I'll  come  back  as  soon  as — as  soon  as  I  can  get 
through." 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  87 

He  kissed  her,  and  was  gone.  Half  an  hour 
later  he  sat  in  the  office  of  Abram  Van  Riper 's 
Son. 

There  was  no  doubting  it,  no  denying  it,  no 
palliating  it  even.  The  curse  had  come  upon  the 
house  of  Jacob  Dolph,  and  his  son  was  a  thief  and 
a  fugitive. 

It  was  an  old  story  and  a  simple  story.  It  was 
the  story  of  the  Haskins's  million  and  the  Dolphs' 
hundred  thousand ;  it  was  the  story  of  the  boy  with 
a  hundred  thousand  in  prospect  trying  to  spend 
money  against  the  boy  with  a  million  in  sight.  It 
was  the  story  of  cards,  speculation — another  name 
for  that  sort  of  gambling  which  is  worse  than  any 
on  the  green  cloth — and  what  is  euphemistically 
known  as  wine. 

There  was  enough  oral  and  documentary  evi 
dence  to  make  the  wrhole  story  hideously  clear  to 
Jacob  Dolph,  as  he  sat  in  that  dark  little  pen  of 
Van  Riper 's  and  had  the  history  of  his  son's  fall 
spelled  out  to  him,  word  by  word.  The  boy  had 
proved  himself  apt  and  clever  in  his  office  work. 
His  education  had  given  him  an  advantage  over 
all  the  other  clerks,  and  he  had  learned  his  duties 
with  wonderful  ease.  And  when,  six  months 
before,  old  Mr.  Daw  had  let  himself  down  from  his 
stool  for  the  last  time,  and  had  muffled  up  his  thin 
old  throat  in  his  great  green  worsted  scarf,  and 
had  gone  home  to  die,  young  Dolph  had  been  put 
temporarily  in  his  place.  In  those  six  months  he 
had  done  his  bad  work.  Even  Van  Riper  admitted 
that  it  must  have  been  a  sudden  temptation.  But 


88  THE  STOEY  OP  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

— he  had  yielded.  In  those  six  months  fifty  thou 
sand  dollars  of  Abram  Van  Riper 's  money  had 
gone  into  the  gulf  that  yawned  in  Wall  Street; 
fifty  thousand  dollars,  not  acquired  by  falsifying 
the  books,  but  filched  outright  from  the  private 
safe  to  which  he  had  access ;  fifty  thousand  dollars, 
in  securities  which  he  had  turned  into  money,  act 
ing  as  the  confidential  man  of  the  house. 

When  Jacob  Dolph,  looking  like  a  man  of  eighty, 
left  the  private  office  of  Mr.  Van  Riper  he  had  two 
things  to  do.  One  was  to  tell  his  wife,  the  other 
was  to  assign  enough  property  to  Van  Riper  to 
cover  the  amount  of  the  defalcation.  Both  had 
been  done  before  night. 


IT  is  to  be  said  for  society  that  there  was  very 
little  chuckling  and  smiling  when  this  fresh 
piece  of  news  about  the  Dolphs  came  out.  Nor 
did  the  news  pass  from  house  to  house  like  wild 
fire.  It  rather  leaked  out  here  and  there,  perco 
lating  through  barriers  of  friendly  silence,  slip 
ping  from  discreet  lips  and  repeated  in  anxious 
confidence,  with  all  manner  of  qualifications  and 
hopeful  suppositions  and  suggestions.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  people  never  really  knew  just  what 
Eustace  Dolph  had  done,  or  how  far  his  wrong 
doing  had  carried  him.  All  that  was  ever  posi 
tively  known  was  that  the  boy  had  got  into  trouble 
down-town,  and  had  gone  to  Europe.  The  exact 
nature  of  the  trouble  could  only  be  conjectured. 
The  very  brokers  who  had  been  the  instruments  of 
young  Dolph 's  ruin  were  not  able  to  separate  his 
authorized  speculations  from  those  which  were 
illegitimate.  They  could  do  no  more  than  guess, 
from  what  they  knew  of  Van  Riper  's  conservative 
method  of  investment,  that  the  young  man's 
unfortunate  purchases  were  made  for  himself,  and 
they  figured  these  at  fifty-five  thousand  odd  hun 
dred  dollars. 

Somebody,  who  looked  up  the  deed  which  Jacob 
Dolph  executed  that  winter  day,  found  that  he  had 

89 


90  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

transferred  to  Van  Riper  real  estate  of  more  than 
that  value. 

No  word  ever  came  from  the  cold  lips  of  Abram 
Van  Riper 's  son;  and  his  office  was  a  piece  of  all 
but  perfect  machinery,  which  dared  not  creak 
when  he  commanded  silence.  And  no  one  save 
Van  Riper  and  Dolph,  and  their  two  lawyers,  knew 
the  whole  truth.  Dolph  never  spoke  about  it  to 
his  wife,  after  that  first  night.  It  was  these  five 
people  only  who  knew  that  Mr.  Jacob  Dolph  had 
parted  with  the  last  bit  of  real  estate  that  he 
owned,  outside  of  his  own  home,  and  they  knew 
that  his  other  property  was  of  a  doubtful  sort,  that 
could  yield  at  the  best  only  a  very  limited  income — 
hardly  enough  for  a  man  who  lived  in  so  great  a 
house,  and  whose  doors  were  open  to  all  his  friends 
nine  months  in  the  year. 

Yet  he  stayed  there,  and  grew  old  with  an  age 
which  the  years  have  not  among  their  gifts. 
When  his  little  girl  was  large  enough  to  sit  upon 
his  knee,  her  small  hands  clutched  at  a  snowy- 
white  mustache,  and  she  complained  that  his 
great,  dark,  hollow  eyes  never  would  look  "right 
into  hers,  away  down  deep."  Yet  he  loved  her, 
and  talked  more  to  her  perhaps  than  to  any  one 
else,  not  even  excepting  Aline. 

But  he  never  spoke  to  her  of  the  elder  brother 
whom  she  could  not  remember.  It  was  her  mother 
who  whispered  something  of  the  story  to  her,  and 
told  her  not  to  let  papa  know  that  she  knew  of  it, 
for  it  would  grieve  him.  Aline  herself  knew 
nothing  about  the  boy  save  that  he  lived,  and  lived 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YOBK  HOUSE  91 

a  criminal.  Jacob  himself  could  only  have  told 
her  that  their  son  was  a  wandering  adventurer, 
known  as  a  blackleg  and  sharper  in  every  town  in 
Europe. 

The  doors  of  the  great  house  were  closed  to  all 
the  world,  or  opened  only  for  some  old  friend,  who 
went  away  very  soon  out  of  the  presence  of  a  sad 
ness  beyond  all  solace  of  words,  or  kindly  look,  or 
hand-clasp.  And  so,  in  something  that  only  the 
grace  of  their  gentle  lives  relieved  from  absolute 
poverty,  those  three  dwelt  in  the  old  house,  and 

let  the  world  slip  by  them. 

•        ••••••• 

There  was  no  sleep  for  any  one  of  the  little 
household  in  the  great  house  on  the  night  of  the 
14th  of  July,  1863.  Doors  and  blinds  were  closed ; 
only  a  light  shone  through  the  half -open  slats  at  a 
second-story  window,  and  in  that  room  Aline  lay 
sick,  almost  unto  death,  her  white  hair  loosed  from 
its  usual  dainty  neatness,  her  dark  eyes  turning 
with  an  unmeaning  gaze  from  the  face  of  the  little 
girl  at  her  side  to  the  face  of  her  husband  at  the 
foot  of  her  bed.  Her  hands,  wrinkled  and  small, 
groped  over  the  coverlet,  with  nervous  twitchings, 
as  every  now  and  then  the  howls  or  the  pistol- 
shots  of  the  mob  in  the  streets  below  them  fell  on 
her  ear.  And  at  every  such  movement  the  lips  of 
the  girl  by  her  pillow  twitched  in  piteous  sym 
pathy.  About  half -past  twelve  there  was  sharp 
firing  in  volleys  to  the  southward  of  them,  that 
threw  the  half -conscious  sufferer  into  an  agony  of 
supersensitive  disturbance.  Then  there  came  a 


92  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

silence  that  seemed  unnaturally  deep,  yet  it  was 
only  the  silence  of  a  summer  night  in  the  deserted 
city  streets. 

Through  it  they  heard,  sharp  and  sudden,  with 
something  inexplicably  fearful  about  it,  the  patter 
of  running  feet.  They  had  heard  that  sound  often 
enough  that  night  and  the  night  before ;  but  these 
feet  stopped  at  their  own  door,  and  came  up  the 
steps,  and  the  runner  beat  and  pounded  on  the 
heavy  panels. 

Father  and  child  looked  in  each  other's  eyes,  and 
then  Jacob  Dolph  left  his  post  at  the  foot  of  the 
bed,  and,  passing  out  of  the  room,  went  down  the 
stairs  with  deliberate  tread,  and  opened  the  door. 

A  negro's  face,  almost  gray  in  its  mad  fear, 
stared  into  his  with  a  desperate  appeal  which  the 
lips  could  not  utter.  Dolph  drew  the  man  in,  and 
shut  the  door  behind  him.  The  negro  leaned, 
trembling  and  exhausted,  against  the  wall. 

"I  knowed  you'd  take  me  in,  Mist'  Dolph,"  he 
panted;  "I'm  feared  they  seen  me,  though — they 
was  mighty  clost  behind." 

They  were  close  behind  him,  indeed.  In  half  a 
minute  the  roar  of  the  mob  filled  the  street  with 
one  terrible  howl  and  shriek  of  animal  rage,  heard 
high  above  the  tramp  of  half  a  thousand  feet ;  and 
the  beasts  of  disorder,  gathered  from  all  the  city's 
holes  and  dens  of  crime,  wild  for  rapine  and  out 
rage,  burst  upon  them,  sweeping  up  the  steps, 
hammering  at  the  great  door,  crying  for  the  blood 
of  the  helpless  and  the  innocent. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  93 

Foreign  faces,  almost  all!  Irish,  mostly;  but 
there  were  heavy,  ignorant  German  types  of  fea 
ture  uplifted  under  the  gas-light;  sallow,  black- 
mustached  Magyar  faces ;  thin,  acute,  French 
faces — all  with  the  stamp  of  old-world  ignorance 
and  vice  upon  them. 

The  door  opened,  and  the  white-haired  old 
gentleman,  erect,  haughty,  with  brightening  eyes, 
faced  the  leader  of  the  mob — a  great  fellow,  black- 
bearded,  who  had  a  space  to  himself  on  the  stoop, 
and  swung  his  broad  shoulders  from  side  to  side. 

"Have  you  got  a  nigger  here?"  he  began,  and 
then  stopped  short,  for  Jacob  Dolph  was  looking 
upon  the  face  of  his  son. 

Vagabond  and  outcast,  he  had  the  vagabond's 
quick  wit,  this  leader  of  infuriate  crime,  and  some 
one  good  impulse  stirred  in  him  of  his  forfeited 
gentlehood.  He  turned  savagely  upon  his  fol 
lowers. 

* '  He  ain  't  here ! ' '  he  roared.  * '  I  told  you  so — I 
saw  him  turn  the  corner. " 

"Shtap  an'  burrn  the  bondholder's  house!" 
yelled  a  man  behind.  Eustace  Dolph  turned 
round  with  a  furious,  threatening  gesture. 

"You  damned  fool!"  he  thundered;  "he's  no 
bondholder — he's  one  of  us.  Go  on,  I  tell  you! 
Will  you  let  that  nigger  get  away?" 

He  half  drove  them  down  the  steps.  The  old 
man  stepped  out,  his  face  aflame  under  his  white 
hair,  his  whole  frame  quivering. 

"You  lie,  sir!"  he  cried;  but  his  voice  was 


94  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

drowned  in  the  howl  of  the  mob  as  it  swept  around 
the  corner,  forgetting  all  things  else  in  the  mad 
ness  of  its  hideous  chase. 

When  Jacob  Dolph  returned  to  his  wife's 
chamber,  her  feeble  gaze  was  lifted  to  the  ceiling. 
At  the  sound  of  his  footsteps  she  let  it  fall  dimly 
upon  his  face.  He  was  thankful  that,  in  that  last 
moment  of  doubtful  quickening,  she  could  not  read 
his  eyes;  and  she  passed  away,  smiling  sweetly, 
one  of  her  white  old  hands  in  his,  and  one  in  her 
child's. 


Age  takes  small  account  of  the  immediate  flight 
of  time.  To  the  young,  a  year  is  a  mighty  span. 
Be  it  a  happy  or  an  unhappy  year  that  youth  looks 
forward  to,  it  is  a  vista  that  stretches  far  into  the 
future.  And  when  it  is  done,  this  interminable 
year,  and  youth,  just  twelve  months  older,  looks 
back  to  the  first  of  it,  what  a  long  way  off  it  is! 
What  tremendous  progress  we  have  have  made! 
How  much  more  we  know!  How  insufficient 
are  the  standards  by  which  we  measured  the 
world  a  poor  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days 
back! 

But  age  has  grown  habituated  to  the  flight  of 
time.  Years  I  we  have  seen  so  many  of  them  that 
they  make  no  great  impression  upon  us.  What !  is 
it  ten  years  since  young  Midas  first  came  to  the 
counting  room,  asking  humbly  for  an  entry-clerk's 
place — he  who  is  now  the  head  of  the  firm?  Bless 
us!  it  seems  like  yesterday.  Is  it  ten  years  since 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOKK  HOUSE  95 

we  first  put  on  that  coat?  Why,  it  must  be  clean 
out  of  the  fashion  by  this  time. 

But  age  does  not  carry  out  the  thought,  and  ask 
if  itself  be  out  of  fashion.  Age  knows  better.  A 
few  wrinkles,  a  stoop  in  the  back,  a  certain  slow 
ness  of  pace,  do  not  make  a  man  old  at  sixty — nor 
at  seventy,  neither ;  for  now  you  come  to  think  of 
it,  the  ten  years  we  were  speaking  of  is  gone,  and 
it  is  seventy  now,  and  not  sixty.  Seventy !  Why, 
'tis  not  to  be  thought  of  as  old  age — save  when  it 
may  be  necessary  to  rebuke  the  easy  arrogance  of 
youth. 

The  time  had  come  to  Jacob  Dolph  when  he 
could  not  feel  that  he  was  growing  old.  He  was 
old,  of  course,  in  one  sense.  He  was  sixty-one 
when  the  war  broke  out ;  and  they  had  not  allowed 
him  to  form  a  regiment  and  go  to  the  front  at  its 
head.  But  what  was  old  for  a  soldier  in  active 
service  was  not  old  for  a  well-preserved  civilian. 
True,  he  could  never  be  the  same  man  again,  now 
that  poor  Aline  was  gone.  True,  he  was  growing 
more  and  more  disinclined  for  active  exercise,  and 
he  regretted  he  had  led  so  sedentary  a  life.  But 
though  '64  piled  itself  up  on  '63,  and  '65  on  top 
of  that,  these  arbitrary  divisions  of  time  seemed 
to  him  but  trivial. 

Edith  was  growing  old,  perhaps ;  getting  to  be  a 
great  girl,  taller  than  her  mother  and  fairer  of 
complexion,  yet  not  unlike  her,  he  sometimes 
thought,  as  she  began  to  manage  the  affairs  of  the 
house,  and  to  go  about  the  great  shabby  mansion 
with  her  mother's  keys  jingling  at  her  girdle. 


96  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

For  the  years  went  on  crawling  one  over  the  other, 
and  soon  it  was  1873,  and  Edith  was  eighteen 
years  old. 

One  rainy  day  in  this  year  found  Jacob  Dolph  in 
Wall  Street.  Although  he  himself  did  not  think  so, 
he  was  an  old  man  to  others,  and  kindly  hands  such 
as  were  to  be  found  even  in  that  infuriate  crowd, 
had  helped  him  up  the  marble  steps  of  the  Sub- 
Treasury  and  had  given  him  lodgment  on  one  of 
the  great  blocks  of  marble  that  dominate  the 
street.  From  where  he  stood  he  could  see  Wall 
Street,  east  and  west,  and  the  broad  plaza  of 
Broad  Street  to  the  south,  filled  with  a  compact 
mass  of  men,  half  hidden  by  a  myriad  of  umbrel 
las,  rain-soaked,  black,  glinting  in  the  dim  light. 
So  might  a  Roman  legion  have  looked,  when  each 
man  raised  his  targum  above  his  head  and  came 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  his  neighbor  for  the 
assault. 

There  was  a  confused,  ant-like  movement  in  the 
vast  crowd,  and  a  dull  murmur  came  from  it,  ris 
ing,  in  places,  into  excited  shouts.  Here  and  there 
the  fringe  of  the  mass  swelled  up  and  swept 
against  the  steps  of  some  building,  forcing,  or 
trying  to  force,  an  entry.  Sometimes  a  narrow 
stream  of  men  trickled  into  the  half-open  door 
way  ;  sometimes  the  great  portals  closed,  and  then 
there  was  a  mad  outcry  and  a  low  groan,  and  the 
foremost  on  the  steps  suddenly  turned  back,  and 
in  some  strange  way  slipped  through  the  throng 
and  sped  in  all  directions  to  bear  to  hushed  or 
clamorous  offices  the  news  that  this  house  or  that 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  97 

bank  had  '  *  suspended  payment. "  ' '  Busted, ' '  the 
panting  messengers  said  to  white-faced  mer 
chants  ;  and  in  the  slang  of  the  street  was  conveyed 
the  message  of  doom.  The  great  panic  of  1873 
was  upon  the  town — the  outcome  of  long  years  of 
unwarranted  self-confidence,  of  selfish  extrava 
gance,  of  conscienceless  speculation — and,  as  hour 
after  hour  passed  by,  fortunes  were  lost  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  the  bread  was  taken  out 
of  the  mouths  of  the  helpless. 

After  Jacob  Dolph  had  stood  for  some  time, 
looking  down  upon  the  tossing  sea  of  black  um 
brellas,  he  saw  a  narrow  lane  made  through  the 
crowd  in  the  wake  of  a  little  party  of  clerks  and 
porters,  bearing  aid  perhaps  to  some  stricken  bank. 
Slipping  down,  he  followed  close  behind  them. 
Perhaps  the  jostling  hundreds  on  the  sidewalk 
were  gentle  with  him,  seeing  that  he  was  an  old 
man;  perhaps  the  strength  of  excitement  nerved 
him,  for  he  made  his  way  down  the  street  to  the 
flight  of  steps  leading  to  the  door  of  a  tall  white 
building,  and  he  crowded  himself  up  among  the 
pack  that  was  striving  to  enter.  He  had  even  got 
so  far  that  he  could  see  the  line  pouring  in  above 
his  head,  when  there  was  a  sudden  cessation  of 
motion  in  the  press,  and  one  leaf  of  the  outer  iron 
doors  swung  forward,  meeting  the  other,  already 
closed  to  bar  the  crush,  and  two  green-painted 
panels  stood,  impassable,  between  him  and  the  last 
of  the  Dolph  fortune. 

One  howl  and  roar,  and  the  crowd  turned  back 
on  itself,  and  swept  him  with  it.  In  five  minutes 


98  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

a  thousand  offices  knew  of  the  greatest  failure  of 
the  day;  and  Jacob  Dolph  was  leaning — weak, 
gasping,  dazed — against  the  side  wall  of  a  hallway 
in  William  Street,  with  two  stray  office-boys  star 
ing  at  him  out  of  their  small,  round,  unsympathetic 
eyes. 

Let  us  not  ask  what  wild  temptation  led  the  old 
man  back  again  to  risk  all  he  owned  in  that  hellish 
game  that  is  played  in  the  narrow  street.  We  may 
remember  this :  that  he  saw  his  daughter  growing 
to  womanhood  in  that  silent  and  almost  deserted 
house,  shouldered  now  by  low  tenements  and 
wretched  shops  and  vile  drinking-places ;  that  he 
may  have  pictured  for  her  a  brighter  life  in  that 
world  that  had  long  ago  left  him  behind  it  in  his 
bereaved  and  disgraced  loneliness ;  that  he  had  had 
some  vision  of  her  young  beauty  fulfilling  its 
destiny  amid  sweeter  and  fairer  surroundings. 
And  let  us  not  forget  that  he  knew  no  other  means 
than  these  to  win  the  money  for  which  he  cared 
little ;  which  he  found  absolutely  needful. 

After  Jacob  Dolph  had  yielded  for  the  last  time 
to  the  temptation  that  had  conquered  him  once 
before,  and  had  ruined  his  son's  soul;  after  that 
final  disastrous  battle  with  the  gamblers  of  Wall 
Street,  wherein  he  lost  the  last  poor  remnant  of 
the  great  Dolph  fortune,  giving  up  with  it  his 
father's  home  forever,  certain  old  bread  of  his 
father's  casting  came  back  to  him  upon  strange 
waters. 

Abram  Van  Riper  came  to  the  daughter  of  the 
house  of  Dolph,  a  little  before  it  became  certain 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE  99 

that  the  house  must  be  sold,  and  told  her,  in  his 
dry  way,  that  he  had  to  make  a  business  communi 
cation  to  her,  for  he  feared  that  her  father  was 
hardly  capable  of  understanding  such  matters  any 
longer.  She  winced  a  little ;  but  he  took  a  load  off 
her  heart  when  he  made  his  slow,  precise  explana 
tion.  The  fact  was,  he  said,  that  the  business 
transactions  between  her  father  and  himself,  con 
sequent  upon  the  defalcation  of  her  brother 
Eustace,  had  never  been  closed,  in  all  these  seven 
teen  years.  (Edith  Dolph  trembled.)  It  was 
known  at  the  time  that  the  property  transferred  by 
her  father  rather  more  than  covered  the  amount  of 
her  brother's — peculation.  But  her  father's 
extreme  sensitiveness  had  led  him  to  avoid  a  pre 
cise  adjustment,  and  as  the  property  transferred 
was  subject  to  certain  long  leases,  he,  Mr.  Van 
Eiper,  had  thought  it  best  to  wait  until  the  prop 
erty  was  sold  and  the  account  closed,  to  settle  the 
matter  with  Mr.  Dolph.  This  had  lately  been 
done,  and  Mr.  Van  Eiper  found  that,  deducting 
charges,  and  interest  on  his  money  at  seven  per 
cent.,  he  had  made  by  the  transaction  six  thousand 
three  hundred  and  seventy  dollars.  This  sum,  he 
thought,  properly  belonged  to  Mr.  Dolph.  And  if 
Miss  Dolph  would  take  the  counsel  of  an  old  friend 
of  her  father's,  she  would  leave  the  sum  in  charge 
of  the  house  of  Abram  Van  Eiper 's  Sons.  The 
house  would  invest  it  at  ten  per  cent. — he  stopped 
and  looked  at  Edith,  but  she  only  answered  him 
with  innocent  eyes  of  attention — and  would  pay 
her  six  hundred  and  thirty-seven  dollars  annually 


100  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YOEK  HOUSE 

in  quarterly  payments.  It  might  be  of  assistance 
to  Mr.  Dolph  in  Ms  present  situation. 

It  was  of  assistance.  They  lived  on  it,  father 
and  daughter,  with  such  aid  as  Decorative 
Art — just  introduced  to  this  country — gave  in 
semi-remunerative  employment  for  her  deft  fin 
gers. 

Abram  Van  Eiper,  when  he  left  the  weeping, 
grateful  girl,  marched  out  into  the  street,  turned 
his  face  toward  what  was  once  Greenwich  Village, 
and  said  to  his  soul : 

"I  think  that  will  balance  any  obligation  my 
father  may  have  put  himself  under  in  buying  that 
State  Street  house  too  cheap.  Now  then,  old  gen 
tleman,  you  can  lie  easy  in  your  grave.  The  Van 
Eiper s  ain't  beholden  to  the  Dolphs,  that's  sure." 


A  few  years  ago — shall  we  say  as  many  as 
ten? — there  were  two  small  rooms  up  in  a  quiet 
street  in  Harlem,  tenanted  by  an  old  gentleman 
and  a  young  gentlewoman ;  and  in  the  front  room, 
which  was  the  young  woman's  room  by  night,  but 
a  sort  of  parlor  or  sitting-room  in  the  daytime,  the 
old  gentleman  stood  up,  four  times  a  year,  to  have 
his  collar  pulled  up,  and  his  necktie  set  right,  and 
his  coat  dusted  off  by  a  pair  of  small  white  hands, 
so  that  he  might  be  presentable  when  he  went  down 
town  to  collect  certain  moneys  due  him. 

They  were  small  rooms,  but  they  were  bright 
and  cheerful,  being  decorated  with  sketches  and 
studies  of  an  artistic  sort,  which  may  have  been 


THE  STOEY  OP  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  101 

somewhat  crude  and  uncertain  as  to  treatment,  but 
were  certainly  pleasant  and  feminine.  Yet  few 
saw  them  save  the  young  woman  and  the  old  man. 
The  most  frequent  visitor  was  a  young  artist  from 
the  West,  who  often  escorted  Miss  Dolph  to  and 
from  the  Art  League  rooms.  His  name  was 
Eand ;  he  had  studied  in  Munich ;  he  had  a  future 
before  him,  and  was  making  money  on  his  pros 
pects.  He  might  just  as  well  have  lived  in 
luxurious  bachelor  quarters  in  the  lower  part  of 
the  city ;  but,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  he  preferred 
to  live  in  Harlem. 

Old  Mr.  Dolph  insisted  on  going  regularly  every 
quarter-day  to  the  office  of  the  Van  Eiper  Estate, 
"to  collect,"  as  he  said,  "the  interest  due  him." 
Four  times  a  year  he  went  down  town  on  the 
Eighth  Avenue  cars,  where  the  conductors  soon 
learned  to  know  him  by  his  shiny  black  broadcloth 
coat  and  his  snow-white  hair.  His  daughter  was 
always  uneasy  about  these  trips;  but  her  father 
could  not  be  dissuaded  from  them.  To  him  they 
were  his  one  hold  on  active  life — the  all-important 
events  of  the  year.  It  would  have  broken  his  ten 
der  old  heart  to  tell  him  that  he  could  not  go  to 
collect  his  "interest."  And  so  she  set  his  necktie 
right,  and  he  went. 

When  he  got  out  of  the  car  at  Abingdon  Square 
he  tottered,  in  his  slow,  old  way,  to  a  neat  structure 
which  combined  modern  jauntiness  with  old-time 
solidity,  and  which  was  labelled  simply :  '  '  Office  of 
the  Van  Eiper  Estate,"  and  there  he  told  the 
smilingly  indulgent  clerk  that  he  thought  he  would 


102    THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

"take  it  in  cash,  this  time,"  and,  taking  it  in  cash, 
went  forth. 

And  then  he  walked  down  through  Greenwich 
Village  into  New  York  city,  and  into  the  street 
where  stood  the  house  that  his  father  had  built. 
Thus  he  had  gone  to  view  it  four  times  a  year, 
during  every  year  save  the  first,  since  he  had 
given  it  up. 

He  had  seen  it  go  through  one  stage  of  deca 
dence  after  another.  First  it  was  rented,  by  its 
new  owner,  to  the  Jewish  pawnbroker,  with  his 
numerous  family.  Good,  honest  folk  they  were, 
who  tried  to  make  the  house  look  fine,  and  the  five 
daughters  made  the  front  stoop  resplendent  of 
summer  evenings.  But  they  had  long  ago  moved 
up-town.  Then  it  was  a  cheap  boarding-house, 
and  vulgar  and  flashy  men  and  women  swarmed 
out  in  the  morning  and  in  at  eventide.  Then  it 
was  a  lodging-house,  and  shabby  people  let  them 
selves  out  and  in  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night. 
And  last  of  all  it  had  become  a  tenement-house, 
and  had  fallen  into  line  with  its  neighbors  to  left 
and  right,  and  the  window-panes  were  broken,  and 
the  curse  of  misery  and  poverty  and  utter  degra 
dation  had  fallen  upon  it. 

But  still  it  lifted  its  grand  stone  front,  still  it 
stood,  broad  and  great,  among  all  the  houses  in  the 
street.  And  it  was  the  old  man's  custom,  after 
he  had  stood  on  the  opposite  sidewalk  and  gazed 
at  it  for  a  while,  to  go  to  a  little  French  cafe  a 
block  to  the  eastward,  and  there  to  take  a  glass  of 
vermouth  gomme — it  was  a  mild  drink,  and  pleas- 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  103 

ing  to  an  old  man.  Sometimes  he  chanced  to  find 
some  one  in  this  place  who  would  listen  to  his  talk 
about  the  old  house — he  was  very  grand;  but  they 
were  decent  people  who  went  to  that  cafe,  and 
perhaps  would  go  back  with  him  a  block  and  look 
at  it.  We  would  not  have  talked  to  chance  peo 
ple  in  an  east-side  French  cafe.  But  then  we  have 
never  owned  such  a  house,  and  lost  it — and  every 
thing  else. 

•        ••••••• 

Late  one  hot  summer  afternoon  young  Eand  sat 
in  his  studio,  working  enthusiastically  on  a  "com 
position.  ' '  A  new  school  of  art  had  invaded  New 
York,  and  compositions  were  everything,  for  the 
moment,  whether  they  composed  anything  or  noth 
ing.  He  heard  a  nervous  rattling  at  his  door 
knob,  and  he  opened  the  door.  A  young  woman 
lifted  a  sweet,  flushed,  frightened  face  to  his. 

"Oh,  John,"  she  cried,  "father  hasn't  come 
home  yet,  and  it's  five  o'clock,  and  he  left  home  at 
nine. ' ' 

John  Eand  threw  off  his  flannel  jacket,  and  got 
into  his  coat. 

"We'll  find  him;  don't  worry,  dear,"  he  said. 

They  found  him  within  an  hour.  The  great  city, 
having  no  further  use  for  the  old  Dolph  house,  was 
crowding  it  out  of  existence.  With  the  crashing 
of  falling  bricks,  and  the  creaking  of  the  tackle 
that  swung  the  great  beams  downward,  the  old 
house  was  crumbling  into  a  gap  between  two  high 
walls.  Already  you  could  see  through  to  where 
the  bright  new  bricks  were  piled  at  the  back  to 


104  THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE 

build  the  huge  eight-story  factory  that  was  to  take 
its  place.  But  it  was  not  to  see  this  demolition 
that  the  crowd  was  gathered,  filling  the  narrow 
street.  It  stood,  dense,  ugly,  vulgar,  stolidly  in 
tent,  gazing  at  the  windows  of  the  house  opposite 
— a  poor  tenement  house. 

As  they  went  up  the  steps  they  met  the  young 
hospital  surgeon,  going  back  to  his  ambulance. 

"You  his  folks?"  he  inquired.  "Sorry  to  tell 
you  so,  but  I  can't  do  any  good.  Sunstroke,  I  sup 
pose — may  have  been  something  else — but  it's  col 
lapse  now,  and  no  mistake.  You  take  charge, 
sir?"  he  finished,  addressing  Rand. 

Jacob  Dolph  was  lying  on  his  back  in  the  bare 
front  room  on  the  first  floor.  His  daughter  fell 
on  her  knees  by  his  side,  and  made  as  though  she 
would  throw  her  arms  around  him;  but,  looking 
in  his  face,  she  saw  death  quietly  coming  upon  him, 
and  she  only  bent  down  and  kissed  him,  while  her 
tears  wet  his  brow. 

Meanwhile  a  tall  Southerner,  with  hair  half  way 
down  his  neck,  and  kindly  eyes  that  moved  in  uni 
son  with  his  broad  gestures,  was  talking  to  Rand. 

"I  met  the  ol'  gentleman  in  the  French  cafe, 
neah  heah,"  he  said,  "and  he  was  jus'  honing  to 
have  me  come  up  and  see  his  house,  seh — house  he 
used  to  have.  Well,  I  came  right  along,  an'  when 
we  got  here,  sure  'nough,  they's  taihin'  down  that 
house.  Neveh  felt  so  bad  in  all  my  life,  seh.  He 
wasn't  expectin'  of  it,  and  I  'lowed  'twuz  his  old 
home  like,  and  he  was  right  hahd  hit,  fo*  a  fact. 
He  said  to  me,  'Good-day,  seh,'  sezee;  'good-day, 


THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK  HOUSE  105 

seh,'  he  says  to  me,  an'  then  he  starts  across  the 
street,  an'  first  thing  I  know,  he  falls  down  flat  on 
his  face,  seh.  Saw  that  theah  brick  an'  mortar 
comin'  down,  an'  fell  flat  on  his  face.  This  hyeh 
pill-man  'lowed  'twuz  sunstroke;  but  a  Southern 
man  like  I  am  don't  need  to  be  told  what  a  gentle 
man's  feelings  are  when  he  sees  his  house  a-torn 
down — no,  seh.  If  you  ever  down  oweh  way,  seh, 
I'd  be  right  glad " 

But  Rand  had  lifted  Edith  from  the  floor,  for 
her  father  would  know  her  no  more,  and  had 
passed  out  of  this  world,  unconscious  of  all  the 
squalor  and  ruin  about  him ;  and  the  poor  girl  was 
sobbing  on  his  shoulder. 

He  was  very  tender  with  her,  very  sorry  for  her 
— but  he  had  never  known  the  walls  that  fell  across 
the  way;  he  was  a  young  man,  an  artist,  with  a 
great  future  before  him,  and  the  world  was  young 
to  him,  and  she  was  to  be  his  wife. 

Still,  looking  down,  he  saw  that  sweetly  calm, 
listening  look,  that  makes  beautiful  the  faces  of 
the  dead,  come  over  the  face  of  Jacob  Dolph,  as 
though  he,  lying  there,  heard  the  hammers  of  the 
workmen  breaking  down  his  father's  house,  brick 
by  brick — and  yet  the  sound  could  no  longer  jar 
upon  his  ear  or  grieve  his  gentle  spirit. 


THE    MIDGE 
I 

IT  was  quiet  in  the  Brasserie  Pigault.    It  was  a 
snowy  night,  for  one  thing,  the  air  full  of  a 
damp,  heavy  fall  of  broad  white  flakes.     And 
then  there  had  been  a  bad  fire  down  in  Grand 
Street,  and  the  frivolous  and  pleasure-seeking  por 
tion  of  the  quarter  9s  population  had  gone  down  to 
see  the  wounded  people  taken  out  of  the  ruins. 

So  business  was  dull  at  the  Brasserie  Pigault. 
Undeservedly  dull,  for  the  only  stains  on  the  dim 
walls  were  the  stains  of  time  :  the  table-tops  shone 
like  century-polished  mahogany,  the  lusty,  friendly 
fire  glowed  through  the  red  eyes  of  the  great  stove, 
the  sand  on  the  floor  was  crystal-bright,  and  bright 
were  Madame  Pigault  's  black  eyes,  as  she  sat 
knitting  behind  the  desk,  and  looked  toward  the 
window,  where  a  f  ant  ail  of  gas-jets  lit  up  allur 
ingly  the  legend  which,  when  you  once  got  inside, 
read: 


/I3DAJ 


106 


THE  MIDGE  107 

It  was  only  a  beer-saloon,  of  course;  but  there 
were  a  comfort  and  cleanliness  about  it  that  were 
almost  homelike.  And,  just  for  this  dull  hour,  the 
room  was  filled  with  the  charm  of  that  sacred  yet 
sociable  quiet  which  the  male  animal  of  our  species 
loves  to  establish  in  whatever  serves  him  for  club- 
room. 

There  were  little  noises,  but  they  were  of  a  gen 
tle  sort.  From  time  to  time  there  was  the  joggle 
of  falling  coal  in  the  big  stove ;  and  then  Louis,  the 
waiter,  set  it  right  with  a  subdued  rattling.  Some 
times  a  gas-jet  flared  and  wheezed  and  whistled 
until  madame's  knitting-needles  clicked  on  the 
counter,  and  Louis  flew  across  the  room  just  as  the 
vicious  spurt  of  flame  made  up  its  mind  to  subside. 
More  often  than  this,  a  glass  clinked  against  the 
shining  brass  faucet  of  the  keg,  and  there  was  a 
"whish !"  of  beer,  quickly  drowned  in  its  own  bub 
bling  overflow.  And  almost  regularly  every  ten 
minutes,  the  crash  of  shuffling  dominoes  came  from 
where  Mr.  Martin  and  M.  Ovide  Marie,  the  curly- 
haired  music-teacher  from  Amity  Street,  were 
playing. 

Just  across  the  room  from  Mr.  Martin  and  M. 
Marie,  at  the  table  under  the  corresponding  gas 
light,  sat  the  Doctor.  His  overcoat,  with  its  mili 
tary-looking  cape,  was  thrown  back  over  his  shoul 
ders,  his  elbows  were  planted  on  the  table,  and  his 
head  was  propped  up  between  the  closed  fists.  A 
good  American  face  it  was,  too,  that  looked  at  you 
over  those  lean,  sinewy,  nervous  American  knuck 
les.  A  hatchet-face,  if  you  will,  but  a  pleasant 


108  THE  MIDGE 

face  for  all  that — strong  and  fine,  with  the  lines  of 
good  stock  in  it,  with  force  in  the  clear  gray  eye 
and  humor  in  the  curl  of  the  mouth.  A  gentle  face 
— babies  pawed  the  air  to  get  at  it  as  soon  as  they 
saw  it — and  yet,  looking  at  it,  you  could  quite  un 
derstand  that  this  was  the  same  Captain  Peters 
who,  in  1863,  carried  despatches  straight  through 
QuantrelPs  lines  to  that  interesting  arm  of  the 
TJ.  S.  forces  which  at  that  time  was  fighting  fire 
with  fire,  up  and  down  Missouri. 

Nobody  ever  called  him  Captain  nowadays, 
though.  Between  Broadway  and  the  North  Eiver, 
from  Washington  Square  nearly  to  Canal  Street, 
old  residents  hailed  him  as  "  Doctor, "  and  with 
the  sensitive  modesty  of  the  genuine  soldier,  he 
accepted  the  civilian  title,  and  said  nothing  about 
his  captaincy  or  his  record.  Besides,  it  was  Fate, 
he  thought,  that  he  should  be  a  doctor  after  some 
fashion.  All  the  Evert  Peterses  for  five  genera 
tions  back  (and  there  the  count  stopped)  had 
been  doctors.  This  last  Evert  Peters  had  had 
no  liking  for  a  physician's  life;  but  no  choice  had 
been  given  him.  When  he  was  old  enough  to  go  to 
medical  college,  to  medical  college  he  went,  and 
there  he  stayed  until  six  weeks  before  final  exam 
ination,  when  his  father  died.  Then  he  gave  his 
books  and  kit  to  his  chum,  went  back  to  Oneida, 
buried  his  father,  took  himself  to  Troy,  and  set  to 
work  studying  civil  engineering.  Then  the  war 
broke  out,  and  he  found  what  little  he  knew  of 
medicine  and  civil-engineering  coming  handy  in 
ways  he  never  dreamed  of.  When  he  came  home 


THE  MIDGE  109 

from  the  war,  he  sought  out  the  quiet  region  where 
what  is  now  the  French  Quarter  of  New  York 
merges  into  Greenwich  Village,  and  there  settled 
himself  for  a  week  or  two,  to  look  about  him.    And 
then  Ovide  Bocage,  working  in  the  planing-mill  in 
Prince  street,  got  his  hand  into  the  machinery,  and 
would  have  lost  three  fingers  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  timely  surgery  of  the  young  man  just  home 
from  the  war.    And  so  the  young  man  was  grate 
fully  called ' l  the  Doctor. ' >    The '  '  week  or  two '  '  had 
become  fourteen  years,  the  pale  brown  hair  of  the 
" young  man"  had  grown  paler  yet  with  streaks  of 
gray,  the  great  city  had  grown  up  and  left  their 
quarter  far  down  town,  but  still  the  people  there 
about  called  Evert  Peters  " the  Doctor,"  and  he  oc 
cupied  a  well-established  yet  ill-defined  place  in  the 
community,  something  between  the  physician  and 
the  priest,  a  sort  of  amateur  ally  and  adjunct  of  two 
professions,  accepted  by  both  and  recognized  by 
neither;  but  very  dearly  loved  by  all  with  whom 
he  had  to  do. 

He  knew  what  was  wanted,  sitting  cozily  that 
night  in  the  Brasserie  Pigault,  when  he  heard  Piero 
open  the  door,  put  his  head  in,  and  shout : 

"Ohe,  m'sieu'  le  docteur!" 

Piero  had  the  singsong  of  the  sea  in  his  cheery 
hail.  He  was  a  Franco-Italian,  and  the  first  voyage 
he  ever  made  was  his  voyage  to  this  country,  in 
1867,  on  the  bark  Mariana  III.  As  the  rest  of  the 
Mariana's  burden  consisted  of  Cette  wines  and  Por 
tuguese  sailors,  it  must  have  been  Piero 's  personal 
virtue  that  saved  her  from  going  down  in  an  unre- 


110  THE  MIDGE 

grettable  shipwreck.  Since  his  arrival  Piero  had 
never  left  the  French  quarter ;  but,  with  the  aid  of 
a  pair  of  rings  in  his  ears  and  a  roll  in  his  walk,  he 
contrived  to  give  a  maritime  flavor  to  his  life ;  and 
when  he  entered  a  room,  as  far  as  he  possibly  could 
he  made  you  feel  that  he  was  just  opening  the  door 
of  your  cabin  to  smile  on  you  with  his  storm- 
beaten  brown  face  and  report  all  snug  aloft. 

"What's  the  matter,  Piero?"  inquired  the  Doc 
tor,  with  a  harmless  scowl  bringing  his  bushy  gray 
eyebrows  closer  together. 

"Ooman  goin'  die,"  Piero  answered,  grinning 
with  all  his  white  teeth:  "goin'  die  bad,  down 
'OustonStrit." 

"Why  don't  you  go  for  Dr.  Milhaud?  It's  his 
business,  you  marine  chissy-cat, ' '  said  the  Doctor, 
trying  to  be  irritable.  "How  often  have  I  got  to 
tell  you  that  I  won't  interfere  with  a  regular  phy 
sician  unless  it's  a  case  of  necessity?" 

"Yes,"  grinned  Piero,  catching  at  the  last 
word:  "Necess'tairee,  vair  necess'tairee.  She 
go  in'  die,  ev-vair-ee  time,  shu'." 

The  Doctor  rose  from  his  table  with  a  little  sigh 
of  discomfort  and  a  glance  at  his  half -drunk  glass 
of  beer,  and  then  he  resolutely  buttoned  his  coat. 

' '  Where 's  Dr.  Milhaud  I    Down  at  the  fire  ?  " 

"Yes,  sair.  Down  to  ze  fi-er.  Two  men  burn', 
t  'ree  kill ',  le  petit  Coquerel  knock '  down  by  engine ; 
guess  lose  leg, ' '  Piero  explained,  with  great  cheer 
fulness.  "Docf  Milhaud  got  'em  boce,  dem  fell's 
ouat  bin  burn ' — zey  don 't  ouant  go  to  no  hospital. ' ' 

"More  fools  they,"  observed  the  Doctor,  lead- 


THE  MIDGE  111 

ing  the  way  to  the  door,  touching  his  hat  as  he 
passed  Mme.  Pigault.  Piero  cast  a  longing,  sug 
gestive  eye  at  the  bar,  and  followed  him  out  where 
the  silent  flakes  sifted  down  on  them  out  of  the 
moist  blackness  above. 

"  Who  is  it  now,  Piero! "  inquired  the  Doctor,  as 
he  strode  on,  tall  and  straight,  towering  above 
Piero,  who  rolled  along  as  though  he  had  the  whole 
Spanish  Main  surging  in  his  legs. 

"Zat  Poland  lady,  wiz  ze  li'l  gal.  Her  hosban' 
he  die  two  mont'  ago." 

<  <  Why,  Piero, ' ' — the  Doctor  knit  his  brows  again, 
— "that  woman's  in  the  last  stages  of  consumption, 
sure  enough.  Milhaud  told  me  about  her.  You 
don't  want  me  to  go  there;  you  want  the  priest." 

"No,  she  don'  ouant  no  prist,"  and  Piero  shook 
his  head  vigorously:  "she  sen'  fo'  you." 

"What's  her  religion!" 

"Ma  foi,  I  guess  she  don'  got  no  God  nor 
nossin'.  I  say  to  her:  'I  get  you  prist.' — She 
say:  'You  get  me  prist;  prist  bring  my  hosban' 
back,  eh?'  I  say:  'No;  if  you  got  hosban',  ouat 
you  ouant  of  prist?  if  you  no  got  you'  hosban'  no 
mo',  zen  you  ouant  prist.  Zat  ouat  prist  good 
fo' — talk  good  ouen  you  ain'  got  ouat  you  ouant.'  " 

The  Doctor  laughed  softly. 

"Zen  M'sieu'  Goubaud — she  bo'd  wiz  M'sieu' 
Goubaud,  he  biggin  talkin',  an'  he  say:  'You 
excuse  me,  madame ;  you  die  somevair  else,  I  don' 
care  ouaire  you  go ;  you  die  he ',  in  my  'ouse,  you 
got  go  heaven.  Eef  you  no  have  prist,  you  have 
prodestan';  if  you  no  have  prodestan',  you  have 


112  THE  MIDGE 

Doct'  Pittair.'  Zen  she  say:  'I  take  Doct' 
Pittair,'  an'  M'sieu'  Goubaud,  he  sen'  me  fo' 
you." 

It  was  an  old  story  for  the  Doctor.  Many  was 
the  poor  outcast,  afraid  to  face  priest  or  clergy 
man,  who  had  consented  to  open  his  sin-laden  heart 
to  the  good-natured  stranger  who  was  nothing 
more  than  a  sympathetic  fellow-sinner.  This  was 
a  sort  of  duty  for  which  the  Doctor  considered 
himself  utterly  unfit;  but  which  chance  forced 
upon  him.  He  went  through  it  all  with  a  grimly 
humorous  hope  that  some  good,  in  some  unseen 
direction,  might  come  of  it  all.  For  himself,  he 
could  find,  as  he  said,  no  sense  in  it.  "Far  as  7 
can  see,"  he  remarked  once,  "I'm  getting  my 
system  saturated  with  the  smell  of  cabbage,  and 
helping  a  lot  of  cussed  scoundrels  to  die  easy,  when 
it  would  be  a  sight  healthier  for  their  eternal  souls 
to  take  hold  and  wrastle  with  their  iniquity,  and 
die  with  some  sort  of  understanding  of  what  their 
prospects  are.  I'm  afraid  some  of  those  fellows 
that  I've  sent  off  so  slick  and  pleasant  wouldn't 
thank  me  for  it  now." 

In  Houston  Street,  the  dampness  and  heaviness, 
and  the  lifeless  fall  of  the  snowflakes,  were  enough 
to  depress  the  spirits  of  even  the  children,  who  had 
long  ceased  to  skylark  about  the  areas  and  base 
ments  and  up  and  down  the  sharp-pitched  steps. 
Beer  saloons  and  groceries  kept  the  street  awake 
with  patches  of  light;  but  the  weight  of  the  dull, 
damp  weather  was  over  everything. 

M.  Goubaud  was  a  dealer  in  feathers,  and  the 


THE  MIDGE  113 

smell  of  his  stock  penetrated  to  the  uttermost 
corner  of  the  rickety  building  in  which  he  kept 
shop  and  stored  lodgers.  But  it  was  lost  among 
a  dozen  other  smells  in  the  close  back  room  to 
which  Piero  led  the  Doctor.  Few  sick-rooms  are 
sweet,  but  in  this  one  was  an  element  of  unusual 
offensiveness  in  the  musky  cheap  perfume  which 
rose  from  an  open  trunk  in  one  corner  where  some 
bits  of  gaudy  silk  and  satin  showed  bright  and 
sharp  amid  the  dirt  and  grime  around  them. 

"Theatrical,  of  course/'  said  the  Doctor  to  him 
self.  He  sat  down  by  the  bed  while  Piero  intro 
duced  him : 

"Docf  Pittair!"  announced  the  sea-farer,  his 
head  half-way  in  the  door:  "All  same  prist!"  and 
he  vanished. 

Emaciated  and  death-stricken,  it  was  beautiful 
still,  the  face  that  lay  pale  against  the  soiled  blue 
ticking  of  the  pillow.  Young,  too,  the  Doctor 
noticed ;  scant  thirty.  A  lovely  creature  she  must 
have  been,  ten  years  before,  when  there  was  color 
in  those  tea-rose  cheeks,  rosy  fire  in  the  pale, 
shapely  lips,  life  in  the  tangled  mass  of  dark  hair 
damp  with  death.  Her  great  black  eyes  opened  as 
he  looked  at  her,  and  in  the  first  flash  it  seemed  as 
though  he  saw  her  as  she  must  have  been.  Then 
they  closed  again  wearily ;  they  had  taken  no  notice 
of  his  presence. 

Madame  Goubaud,  sallow,  lean  and  unsympa 
thetic,  bent  her  hard  mechanic  face  over  the  sick 
woman,  and  raspingly  appealed  to  her  to  wake  up 
and  say  her  last  words  to  the  good  doctor. 


114  THE  MIDGE 

The  thin  face  moved  on  the  pillow  in  a  pettish 
way,  and  the  eyes  remained  obstinately  closed. 

"Maman!" 

This  came  from  a  child,  a  girl,  a  thin,  small 
reproduction  of  the  dying  woman;  a  little  dark- 
haired,  dark-eyed  thing,  who  had  slipped  up  in 
front  of  the  visitor,  and  stood,  frowning  anxiously 
as  she  looked  at  the  invalid.  Her  meagre,  nervous 
hands  grasped  a  medicine-bottle  and  a  spoon. 

"Maman!"  she  said  again  with  a  vehement 
severity  of  tone,  while  her  pale  lips  trembled: 
" Maman!  parle  done!  ce  n'est  pas  gentil,  c.a — tu 
le  sais  bien!"  She  turned  to  the  Doctor  in 
explanation  and  dropped  into  an  English  of  her 
own.  The  voice  was  childish ;  but  the  manner,  the 
management  of  emphasis  and  inflection,  were 
absurdly  mature. 

"It  is  with  a  sick  as  with  a  crazy,  monsieur. 
You  must  treat  them  as  the  children.  It  is  no  use 
to  reason  with  them.  Maman !  tu  m  'ecoutes  1 ' ' 

The  mother  opened  her  great  eyes  again,  and 
siared  at  the  Doctor,  at  first  vacantly,  then  with  a 
fretful  summoning  of  intelligence. 

"C'est  M.  Peters,"  said  the  child,  encourag 
ingly.  Her  English  words  she  pronounced  cor 
rectly,  with  perhaps  the  least  faintly  perceptible 
trace  of  a  French  accent.  But  the  French  seemed 
to  slip  more  easily  to  her  tongue. 

The  mother  was  opening  and  closing  her  fever 
ish  lips,  as  though  to  indicate  that  her  mouth  was 
dry  and  choking.  The  Doctor  noted  in  the  act 
that  little  touch  of  exaggeration  and  appeal  which 


THE  MIDGE  115 

marks  the  undisciplined  invalid.  The  child  put  a 
spoonful  of  water  between  her  mother's  lips  and 
carefully  tilted  it,  standing  patiently,  with  knit 
brows  and  watchful  eyes,  until  it  was  all  drunk. 

"You  spik  Franch?"  inquired  the  woman, 
hoarsely.  The  Doctor  bowed.  His  French  had 
never  recovered  from  the  accent  he  had  painfully 
learned  at  school ;  but  he  had  been  long  enough  in 
the  French  quarter  to  accustom  his  ears  to  a 
language  that  he  heard  more  frequently  than  his 
own ;  and  he  could  generally  follow  what  was  said 
to  him,  were  it  said  in  anything  short  of  a  Basque 
patois.  It  was  a  rapid  talker  who  could  force  him 
to  help  himself  out  with  an  occasional  "pah  si 
vite!"  or  "ftesfter-c'est-que-ga." 

But  he  had  a  hard  task  this  time.  The  woman's 
story  was  brief,  and  her  speech  was  slow,  but  so 
improbable  seemed  what  she  had  to  say,  so  inco 
herent  and  confused  was  her  manner  of  saying  it, 
that  when,  at  the  end,  she  drew  from  under  the 
pillow  and  thrust  at  him  a  loose  handful  of  dirty, 
creased  and  crumpled  letters  and  papers,  the 
Doctor  took  them  mechanically,  while  he  stared  at 
the  stranger  with  puzzled  eyes, 'wondering  whether 
she  was  delirious  or  he  was  dazed. 

Her  name  was  Mrs.  Eustace  Talbot.  Her  hus 
band — her  dead  husband — had  been  a  great  singer, 
though  no  one  knew  an  artist  in  this  accursed 
country.  She  was  going  to  die,  she  knew.  She 
was  only  thirty;  but  that  was  thirty  years  too 
much,  and  she  was  going  to  die.  It  was  better  so ; 
there  was  a  good  God,  after  all,  for  he  sometimes 


116  THE  MIDGE 

let  people  die.  When  she  was  dead,  she  wanted  to 
have  her  child  sent  to  England,  to  her  husband's 
people.  Her  uncle,  Sir  Eichard  Talbot,  would 
care  for  the  little  one.  He  was  a  great  man — a 
very  rich  man — if  it  was  any  trouble  to  M.  le 
docteur,  he  would  be  well  paid  for  it.  He  was  a 
demon,  Sir  Eichard;  but  at  least  he  was  not 
canaille;  he  would  take  the  child  out  of  this 
canaille  atmosphere  that  had  killed  her  poor  father 
and  her  poor  mother.  Sir  Eichard  had  a  palace ; 
he  would  take  the  child  to  his  palace;  she  would 
learn  to  forget  her  miserable  father  and  mother ; 
it  was  best;  she  could  only  remember  them  as 
living  among  canaille — and  so — the  papers  would 
tell  all  to  M.  le  docteur — so  let  her  die  in  peace. 

This  was  told  brokenly,  excitement  struggling 
with  weakness.  It  ended  in  a  piteous  and  feeble 
outcry  over  her  sad  case,  over  her  unhappy  life; 
and  then  she  turned  her  back  on  Dr.  Peters,  with  a 
movement  of  the  shoulders  that  seemed  to  dismiss 
him  and  the  world  together.  There  was  so  much 
of  the  spoiled  child  in  it,  so  much  of  hysterical 
affectation  and  exaggeration,  that  if  the  Doctor 
had  not  seen  the  unmistakable  signs  of  death  in 
the  damp  face,  he  would  have  taken  it  for  an 
extreme  case  of  invalid  malingering. 

All  the  while  the  little  girl  stood  by  the  bedside, 
her  large,  dark,  anxious  eyes  fixed  on  her  mother. 
Their  look  of  distressed  comprehension  was  pain 
fully  mature ;  but  her  upper  lip  quivered  in  child 
ish  fashion,  and  her  breast  heaved  with  big 
breaths  that  were  almost  sobs.  She  still  held  the 


THE  MIDGE  117 

spoon,  and  at  each  breath  it  clicked  softly  against 
the  glass  in  her  other  hand.  She  said  not  a  word, 
and  her  gaze  never  once  dropped  from  the  sick 
woman's  face. 

The  Doctor  left  the  bedside  and  sat  down  under 
the  one  meagre  gas-jet  to  glance  over  the  letters. 
He  was  not  ready  to  believe  this  story  of  rich  and 
titled  connections.  But  it  was  true,  seemingly. 
He  slowly  shuffled  over  the  soiled  papers,  lifting 
them  up  to  the  dim  light,  and  they  bore  out  the  tale. 
They  were  mainly  short  notes  from  Sir  Richard 
Talbot,  of  Pollard  Hall,  Stonehill,  Kent,  to  his 
brother  in  Paris.  They  were  of  an  unfriendly 
tone,  refusing  or  grudgingly  allowing  repeated  de 
mands  for  money.  But  they  left  no  doubt  that 
there  was  a  Sir  Richard  Talbot,  and  that  he  had 
had  a  scapegrace  brother  named  Eustace,  and  that 
this  Eustace  was  an  opera-singer. 

He  had  scarcely  run  through  them  when  he 
heard  a  new  sound  from  the  bed,  and  Mme.  Gou- 
baud  bent  quickly  to  look  in  the  changing  face. 
The  Doctor  crossed  the  room,  but  not  before  the 
child  had  thrown  herself  forward  on  the  bed  in  a 
storm  of  tears  and  caressing  cries  and  wild 
appeals  to  the  spirit  that  was  slipping  away  in 
dumb  unconsciousness.  She  knew  it ;  she  had  seen 
it  before,  inexorable  death.  There  was  no  hope  in 
her  instinctive  outcry ;  she  saw,  with  wide,  staring 
eyes,  the  light  sink  out  of  the  face  and  leave  a  hard, 
dull  gray,  a  blank  strangeness ;  and  she  knew  what 
it  meant. 

She  turned  in  quick,  understanding  obedience 


118  THE  MIDGE 

when  the  Doctor  drew  her  to  him  and  held  her  face 
against  his  breast.  For  a  moment  it  rested  there 
motionless,  and  then  her  sobs  broke  forth,  and  her 
slim  body  shook  and  quivered  in  Dr.  Peters 's  arms. 
He  pressed  her  closer,  and  she  clung  to  him  and 
made  no  attempt  to  look  behind  her. 

Madame  Goubaud  peered  sharply  into  the  still 
face,  crossed  herself,  pressed  her  toilworn  thumb 
down  on  the  half-closed  eyelids,  and  then,  much 
as  she  might  have  corded  up  a  bundle  of  feathers, 
passed  an  old  red  print  handkerchief  under  the 
dead  chin,  and  tied  the  ends  in  a  knot  on  top  of 
the  head. 

Dr.  Peters  lifted  up  the  girl  in  his  arms.  She 
yielded  herself  to  him,  keeping  her  face  away 
from  the  bed  until  she  could  hide  her  eyes  on 
his  shoulder.  He  carried  her  out  of  the  room. 
Alphonsine,  the  homely-faced,  good-natured  ap 
prentice  of  the  house  of  Goubaud,  offered  to 
take  la  pauvre  petite  in  her  own  bed  that  night. 
They  climbed  the  steep  stairs  to  the  little  attic 
room  where  Alphonsine  shivered  of  winter  nights 
until,  under  the  collection  of  rags  that  served  her 
for  a  coverlid,  she  generated  the  animal  warmth 
of  healthful  sleep. 

It  was  a  poor  place  for  the  child,  bleak  and  bare 
and  wind-ridden,  and  the  desperate  poverty  of  the 
tattered  bed-clothes  caught  the  Doctor's  eye;  but 
he  thought  of  Mme.  Goubaud 's  soulless,  hard  face 
downstairs,  and  he  left  the  little  one  to  the  com 
fort  and  protection  of  Alphonsine 's  broad  bosom. 


II 


THE  snow  had  ceased,  the  wind  had  risen,  and 
the  thermometer  had  fallen,  when  the  Doc 
tor  set  out  for  his  home.  It  was  late,  too, 
past  twelve,  but  he  went  out  of  his  way  to  the  little 
French  undertaker's  in  Grand  street.  The  under 
taker  was  not  in  bed;  he  was  "confectioning"  an 
important  commission,  as  he  informed  his  visitor, 
and  he  crimped  a  piece  of  discolored  satin  and 
smiled  cheerfully  as  he  promised,  with  encourag 
ing  redundancy  of  assurances,  that  he  would  go 
around  in  the  morning,  and  supply  that  hideously 
meagre  attempt  at  a  funeral  which  just  saves  the 
pride  of  the  poor  from  the  keen  disgrace  of  the 
Potter 's  Field.  A  pine  coffin,  a  hearse,  one  hack, 
and  a  share  of  a  grave  in  some  God-forsaken 
cemetery  in  New  Jersey — you  can  have  all  these 
for  twenty  dollars. 

And,  that  being  settled,  Dr.  Peters  went  on  to 
Washington  Square,  on  the  dark  south  side  of 
which  he  found  one  late  light  glimmering  in  a  high 
window.  The  house  in  which  it  shone  stood  a 
little  back  from  the  street,  and  looked  even  darker 
and  gloomier  than  those  about  it.  The  one  pale 
light  did  not  give  an  idea  of  home;  there  was 
nothing  of  expectant  welcome  about  it;  it  rather 
suggested  a  weary  and  uncanny  wakefulness,  and 

119 


120  THE  MIDGE 

made  the  Doctor  feel  that  he  ought  to  have  been  in 
bed  hours  before. 

He  let  himself  in  with  a  great  old-fashioned 
brass  key,  and  toiled  up  the  silent  stairs,  passing 
out  of  the  region  of  perpetual  cabbage  only  when 
he  reached  the  third  story. 

He  opened  the  door  of  his  own  private  domain 
with  some  apprehension ;  but  he  found  a  bit  of  fire 
still  in  the  grate — a  fire  of  anthracite,  clinkery, 
gassy,  and  dull,  yet  capable  of  revivification,  and 
after  a  temporary  eclipse  under  the  blower,  it 
brightened  up  and  gave  forth  warmth  after  its 
kind. 

The  Doctor  got  into  his  slippers  and  his  old 
"house-coat,"  while  the  fire  was  rekindling,  and, 
late  as  it  was,  he  lit  his  pipe  and  sat  down  with  his 
soles  close  to  the  grate,  to  look  over  the  papers  in 
his  pocket,  for  in  addition  to  those  he  had  received 
from  Mrs.  Talbot,  M.  Goubaud  had  seen  fit  to 
entrust  him  with  a  bundle  of  scrap-books,  letters 
and  odd  documents  found  in  the  trunk  with  the 
theatrical  raiment. 

In  the  hour  that  he  sat  before  the  fire,  he  got  at 
no  more  than  the  bare  outlines  of  a  story  that  in 
after  years  he  was  able  to  round  out  and  fill  up; 
but  he  had  enough  knowledge  of  the  weak  side  of 
human  nature  to  form  in  that  brief  glance  a  judg 
ment  which  better  knowledge  only  confirmed. 

He  found  out  that  Eustace  Reginald  Hunt  Hunt 
Talbot  was  the  son  of  Sir  Hugh  Talbot,  vaguely 
described  in  various  clippings  from  French  papers 
as  "un  nobleman  anglais."  His  mother  was  a 


THE  MIDGE  121 

Frenchwoman,  the  daughter  of  a  rich  banker, 
Cesar  Galifet.  He  had  an  uncle,  Antoine  Galif et, 
a  Gascon,  supposed  to  be  a  man  of  vast  wealth. 
Uncle  Antoine  desired  that  his  nephew  Eustace 
should  be  brought  up  in  France,  and  it  appeared 
that  the  Talbot  family  was  very  willing  to  oblige 
Uncle  Antoine.  There  was  reason,  indeed,  to 
believe  that  they  were  glad  to  get  rid  of  Eustace, 
and  that  Eustace  had  given  them  cause  for  such 
gladness.  He  was  sent  to  France  at  twelve  years 
of  age,  put  through  pension  and  college,  and 
turned  loose  in  Paris  ten  years  after  he  left  Eng 
land.  Uncle  Antoine  had  probably  had  some  little 
schemes  of  his  own  for  shaping  the  future  of  his 
nephew ;  but,  whatever  they  may  have  been,  they 
came  to  naught.  From  1852  to  1862,  Mr.  Eustace 
Talbot,  whom  his  French  friends,  by  some  Gallic 
association  of  ideas,  called  M.  le  vicomte  de  Talbot, 
was  a  man-about-town  in  Paris.  He  had  an  allow 
ance  from  Uncle  Antoine,  just  large  enough  to 
make  him  wish  that  it  was  larger,  and  when  he  was 
very  deeply  in  debt  he  applied  to  his  father  in  Eng 
land,  who  generally  sent  him  half  the  money  he 
asked  for,  and  just  twice  as  much  advice  as  he  had 
use  for.  There  was  nothing  to  show  that  he  had 
much  to  do  with  the  "serious"  society  of  Paris; 
he  was  a  club  man,  a  little  of  a  rake,  a  little  of  a 
gambler,  a  handsome,  amiable,  superficially  clever, 
and  fairly  accomplished  young  buck.  He  found 
his  associates  among  the  fast  young  Frenchmen 
who  were  in  the  theatre-lobbies  when  they  were  not 
in  the  theatre  dressing-rooms,  and  among  that 


122  THE  MIDGE 

interesting  class  of  aristocratic  Englishmen  who 
occasionally  found  it  convenient  to  pass  a  few 
months  in  Paris,  waiting  for  something  or  other  to 
"blow  over."  He  was  a  good  shot,  a  fair  fencer, 
and  an  amateur  singer — a  tenor — of  some  repute. 
Various  "Chronicles  of  the  Day"  spoke  of  him  as 
"le  Mario  du  Cercle  Anglais."  There  were  two 
or  three  silvery,  rouged  daguerreotypes  of  him, 
taken  ahout  this  time,  and  they  showed  him  as 
with  a  black  moustache  and  black  whiskers — a  sort 
of  modified  Newgate  collar — much  black,  curly 
hair,  a  swelling  chest  and  a  flashing  eye,  and  most 
marvelous  waistcoats.  He  was  doubtless  a  hand 
some  man,  in  a  consciously  Byronic  way. 

Somewhere  about  1857  Uncle  Antoine  died,  and 
his  vast  wealth  turned  out  to  be  a  modest  patri 
mony,  to  which  he  had  added  not  one  sou,  in  the 
course  of  a  long,  frugal  and  industrious  life  as  a 
gentleman-farmer.  Mr.  Eustace  Talbot,  who  had 
grumbled  at  his  allowance,  grumbled  still  more 
when  he  received  his  inheritance,  and  showed  his 
contempt  for  the  pitiful  sum  by  spending  it  all  in 
four  or  five  years.  In  1862  he  found  himself 
stranded.  His  father  was  dead,  and  his  brother 
Richard  was  now  the  head  of  the  house.  And 
Brother  Richard,  when  applied  to  for  ready 
money,  honored  the  draft  with  even  more  advice 
and  even  less  money  than  had  seemed  proper  to  his 
excellent  father.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  Mr. 
Eustace  Talbot,  being  thirty-four,  somewhat  faded 
as  a  buck  and  as  a  social  success  in  the  Paris  clubs, 
having  many  debts  and  no  more  credit,  and  being 


THE  MIDGE  123 

possessed  still  of  a  reasonably  pleasing  face  and 
figure,  and  a  nice  little  v oix  de  salon,  well  culti 
vated,  went  on  the  stage,  and  made  a  successful 
first  appearance  at  the  Italiens,  singing  a  small 
part  in  Mario's  company. 

Hereabouts  in  the  story  the  documentary 
material  became  voluminous,  while  the  solid 
information  to  be  derived  therefrom  grew  dispro 
portionately  meagre.  There  were  dozens  of  news 
paper  paragraphs,  polite  criticisms  and  undis 
guised  puffs,  so  worded  as  to  feed  the  vanity  of 
the  man  at  and  of  whom  they  were  written,  and  to 
show  to  the  cold  and  unprejudiced  reader  that  the 
poor  devil  had  made  a  second-class,  second-rate 
success  for  the  moment. 

Then,  in  1865,  before  the  success,  such  as  it  was, 
had  quite  faded  away,  Mr.  Eustace  Talbot  mar 
ried  Mile.  Lodoiska  Leczynska.  There  was  little 
to  be  learned  about  Mile.  Leczynska.  The  Doctor, 
who  had  seen  Mrs.  Talbot  die  an  hour  before,  could 
readily  believe  what  the  Petit  Figaro  said  of  her 
in  1865 — that  she  was  seventeen  years  of  age, 
ravishingly  beautiful,  svelte  and  brune,  and  that 
she  belonged  to  an  aristocratic  family  of  Poland. 
But  that  was  all  that  the  Doctor  was  destined  to 
know  of  her  origin — all,  perhaps,  that  she  herself 
knew.  Talbot  had  found  her,  a  mere  child,  in 
some  little  foreign  colony  quartered  in  Bohemian 
Paris — a  respectable,  decent,  poverty-stricken, 
artistic,  pretentious  little  set  of  people — there  was 
enough  in  the  notices  of  the  wedding  to  show  that 
much — and  he  had  married  her  out  of  hand.  It 


124  THE  MIDGE 

was  a  love-match,  pure  and  simple,  and  the  love,  at 
least,  lasted:  not  in  its  first  flush  of  ideal  beauty, 
perhaps ;  but  it  lasted. 

Sir  Richard,  in  England,  stormed.  He  thought 
his  brother  had  disgraced  the  family  name  when 
he  took  to  the  stage ;  but  this  marriage  was  some 
thing  not  to  be  forgiven.  His  wounded  pride  led 
him  to  button  his  pocket  all  the  closer. 

Then  the  hard  times  came  to  the  Eustace  Tal- 
bots.  For  the  first  year  they  found  life  a  merry 
game  enough.  They  were  poor;  but  it  was  with 
the  picturesque,  easy-going  poverty  of  Bohemia. 
Their  hardships  were  picknicking  hardships,  and 
they  rather  enjoyed  roughing  it.  Talbot  procured 
engagements  to  sing  in  the  Provinces,  and  he  had 
an  Englishman's  faculty  for  getting  credit,  and  so 
they  went  merrily  through  the  twelve-month.  But 
at  the  end  of  it  the  baby  was  born — they  christened 
her  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot,  and  she 
weighed  seven  pounds  when  she  went  to  the  font — 
and  after  that  it  was  poverty  out  and  out,  bare, 
hard,  shabby,  degrading,  worrying,  toilsome 
troubled,  ugly  poverty.  The  provinces  had  grown 
tired  of  M.  le  vicomte  de  Talbot,  with  his  swelling 
chest  and  his  voix  de  salon  and  his  handsome 
dandy  face,  with  the  crow's  feet  around  the  cor 
ners  of  his  eyes.  Paris  laughed  at  him  when  he 
tried  to  get  back  into  grand  opera;  and  when  he 
got  down  to  singing  in  vaudeville  at  the  "Folies 
Sylphides,"  Paris  absolutely  refused  to  laugh  at 
him,  and  voted  him  a  bore. 

And  so,  at  last,  they  had  to  go  on  the  road  in 


THE  MIDGE  125 

frank  vagabondage,  and  they  wandered  hither  and 
thither,  all  over  Europe,  going  anywhere  where 
anybody  would  pay  for  the  well-meant  labors  of  a 
gentlemanly  amateur  who  had  once  sung  with 
Mario  at  the  Salle  Ventadour,  and  who  would  now 
give  you  "la  Pipe  de  Mon  Oncle"  or  "Mariette, 
Mariette,  Ousque  la  crevette  ? ' '  and  other  pleasing 
ballads  of  the  day,  at  five  francs  a  ballad.  Spas, 
baths,  gambling-places,  seaside  towns,  they  tried 
them  all,  and  their  beggarly  pilgrimage  took  them 
north,  south,  east  and  west.  And  all  the  time  the 
little  voix  de  salon  grew  thinner  and  reedier,  the 
crow's-feet  sank  deeper,  the  marvelous  waistcoats 
grew  shabbier  and  duller. 

The  seven-pound  baby  was  growing  up  and 
going  through  the  education  of  Bohemia.  The 
wife  was  sickly,  helpless,  loving,  faithful,  and  for 
ever  complaining.  Talbot  carried  his  shabby 
gentility  with  a  swagger,  gambled  a  little,  drank  a 
little,  sometimes  made  his  wife  more  or  less 
jealous,  and  never  forgot — or  said  he  never  for 
got — that  he  was  an  artist,  an  English  gentleman, 
and  one  whom  the  world  had  used  most  vilely. 

They  were  a  happy  family,  too.  They  were  all 
satisfied  with  themselves,  and  rich  in  complacent 
self-conceit,  and  they  hung  together  loyally. 
True,  Mr.  Eustace  Talbot 's  vanity  occasionally 
marred  the  harmony;  but  only  to  bring  about  a 
completer  unison,  for  his  wife  extracted  a  certain 
proud  satisfaction  from  any  testimony  to  the 
charms  of  the  husband  whom  she  had  learned  to 
worship  as  a  demigod  when  she  was  a  school-girl 


126  THE  MIDGE 

and  he  was  a  dashing  young  buck  of  thirty-seven. 
He  must  have  had  crow's-feet  then;  he  certainly 
had  them  now ;  but  she  had  never  seen  them. 

It  did  not  require  much  imagination  to  picture 
the  life  they  led — slipshod,  needy,  happy-go-lucky; 
pretentious  at  its  very  slovenliest;  full  of  disap 
pointments,  humiliations  and  embarrassments. 
And  through  it  all,  in  cheap  lodging-houses  and 
cheaper  hotels,  vulgarized  by  the  enforced  famili 
arities  of  poverty,  much  tried,  often  disillusioned, 
love  sat  down  and  rose  up  with  them,  and  sweet 
ened  their  bitter  bread. 

America  was  the  end  of  it.  Europe  was 
exhausted  after  ten  or  eleven  years  of  assiduous 
debt-sowing,  and  they  turned  to  the  land  of  gold 
and  barbarians,  where  artists  and  gentlemen  must 
certainly  be  at  a  premium.  Sir  Richard  was 
called  upon  for  help — positively  for  the  last  time — 
and  he  doled  out  fifty  pounds  for  the  privilege  of 
having  three  thousand  miles  between  himself  and 
his  brother. 

They  were  not  long  in  finding  out  that  America 
is  no  place  for  an  artist.  After  many  rebuffs,  the 
thin  voix  de  salon  piped  its  last — given  a  chance 
out  of  pure  charity — in  a  wretched  Bowery 
theatre,  where  the  gallery-boys  " guyed"  it  with 
cruel  applause.  And  in  the  very  first  of  the  winter 
a  young  clerk  at  Bellevue  Hospital  grinned  as  he 
wrote  down  in  his  report  to  the  Bureau  of  Vital 
Statistics  the  elaborate  name  of  Eustace  Eeginald 
Hunt  Hunt  Talbot,  dead  of  typhoid  fever. 

The  rest  Dr.  Peters  knew,  of  his  own  personal 


THE  MIDGE  127 

knowledge — except  that  he  never  knew,  nor  cared 
to  know  by  what  hideous  shifts  and  devices  the  few 
dollars  left  out  of  Sir  Bichard's  fifty  pounds  had 
carried  mother  and  child  over  the  three  months 
since  the  father  had  fallen  sick. 

The  Doctor's  fire  was  out.  He  kicked  it,  and 
brought  down  a  shower  of  white  ashes  and  grey 
cinders.  He  rose,  and,  gathering  up  the  papers 
with  a  long-drawn  whistle  that  ended  in  a  sigh,  he 
put  them  in  his  desk;  and  as  he  did  so  he  said 
aloud — he  had  the  old  bachelor's  habit  of  brief 
soliloquy — "  Queer  world,  by  jingo — powerful 
queer  world ! ' ' 

Then,  as  had  been  his  habit  every  night  for 
thirteen  years,  he  stalked  into  the  work-room  that 
lay  behind  his  "living-room,"  and  looked  at  the 
accumulation  of  wrought  metal  that  represented 
his  work  since  1865,  when  he  set  out  to  invent  the 
ideal  cannon.  He  laid  a  caressing  hand  upon  the 
latest  of  his  models,  and  looked  at  it  for  a  moment, 
knitting  his  brows,  as  though  he  thought  that  per 
haps  the  secret  of  success  might  be  revealed  to  him 
in  that  glance.  It  was  not,  and  he  turned  away, 
with  a  grim  half-smile,  and  crossed  the  living-room 
again  to  the  little  hall-bedroom  where  his  bachelor 
couch,  virginal  white,  awaited  him. 


ni 

THE  Doctor  awoke  the  next  morning  with  a 
special  sense  of  duty  to  be  performed.  His 
days  were  monotonous  enough  to  make  this 
feeling  somewhat  of  a  pleasant  surprise.  The 
day,  indeed,  generally  brought  its  duty  of  charity 
or  benevolence;  but  it  mostly  took  the  form  of  a 
casual  call  upon  his  sympathy,  the  precise  nature 
of  which  he  could  not  foresee.  And,  as  a  rule,  he 
had  to  minister  only  to  accidental  and  temporary 
needs.  As  he  himself  put  it,  it  was  somebody 
everlastingly  breaking  legs  at  odd  times. 

But  this  time  he  felt  that  he  had  a  case  on  his 
hands.  He  had  had  no  chance  to  accept  or  refuse 
the  trust  Mrs.  Talbot  had  sought  to  impose  upon 
him.  Death  had  settled  that  matter.  To  shirk 
the  obligation  now  would  be,  he  thought,  to  take 
an  unfair  advantage  of  a  dead  woman.  Lodoiska 
Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot  was  to  be  handed  over  to 
her  uncle  in  England,  and  he  was  to  do  it.  He 
made  no  more  question  of  that  than  he  would  have 
made  fifteen  years  before  had  the  work  been 
allotted  to  him  by  order  of  his  superior  officer. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  get  an  appro 
priation  from  the  French  Benevolent  Society,  for 
the  burying  of  the  mother  and  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  child  until  such  time  as  Sir  Eichard  Talbot 

128 


THE  MIDGE  129 

should  take  charge  of  her.  Old  Luise,  who  "did 
for"  him,  brought  the  Doctor's  breakfast — a 
scanty  and  uninviting  meal  of  fried  eggs  and 
baker 's  bread — at  half -past  seven ;  and  at  eight  he 
was  at  the  rooms  of  the  Benevolent  Society,  and 
the  chirrupy,  bald-headed  little  Secretary  was 
inquiring  what  he  could  do  for  his  "good  fran' 
Pittairss." 

His  good  friend  Peters  had  been  on  similar 
errands  many  a  time  before,  and  went  about  the 
business  with  good-humored  patience.  The  Secre 
tary  lifted  his  shoulders  and  raised  his  eyebrows 
and  threw  up  his  hands  with  little  gestures  of 
deprecation,  and  cast  a  faint  shade  of  polite  doubt 
on  each  separate  statement,  while  the  Doctor  told 
his  story  and  made  his  requests.  It  looked  very 
discouraging;  but  it  meant  nothing;  it  was  all  a 
matter  of  form.  And  after  a  proper  time  the 
Secretary  expressed  himself  satisfied  that,  in  spite 
of  her  name  (for  the  father  had  always  sung  as 
"Eustace  Talbot"),  the  orphan  waif  was  a 
genuine  child  of  France,  and,  as  such,  entitled 
to  relief  at  the  hands  of  the  Society.  That  it  was 
the  Society's  duty  to  bury  the  mother  he  was  not 
so  clear.  He  wanted  to  compromise  the  matter. 

"Doctor  Pittairss, "  he  said,  with  a  humorous 
grimace  of  hopeless  persuasion:  "You  ar-r-r  reech 
— we  'av  moch  to  do — manny  sings  to  at-ten '  to — 
w'y  you  don't  help  us — eh?  You  give  'alf,  eh?" 

"Not  much,"  the  Doctor  placidly  replied:  "this 
is  none  of  my  funeral,  Peloubet." 

"All  a-'ight,"  chirruped  the  little  Secretary: 


130  THE  MIDGE 

"se  more  you  Emmery-can  millionaires  you  'ave 
monnee,  se  more  you  ar-r-r  stingy,  an'  se  more  you 
talk  slangue.  Vair'  well."  His  tone  changed, 
and  he  laid  a  friendly  hand  on  the  Doctor's 
shoulder:  "Eet  is  all  a-'ight,  my  fran'.  I  sink 
sair  will  be  no  trobble.  We  bary  se  mosser,  I  sink. 
I  let  you  know,  anny  'ow.  Catholique,  eh!" 

"No,"  said  the  Doctor,  speaking  promptly  out 
of  his  profound  ignorance :  "Protestant." 

The  Secretary's  face  fell.  This  statement 
seemed  to  open  the  question  of  nationality  once 
more — that  is,  he  tried  to  look  as  though  he 
thought  it  did.  But  this  was  again  only  a  matter  of 
form.  The  Secretary  knew  Dr.  Peters  well,  and  he 
had  handled  Dr.  Peters 's  money,  and  the  success 
of  the  application  had  been  a  foregone  conclusion. 
He  wore  a  doubtful  frown  as  he  saw  the  Doctor  to 
the  door;  but  within  an  hour  he  had  put  the 
Benevolent  machinery  in  motion,  and  it  was  settled 
that  the  expenses  of  Mrs.  Talbot's  funeral  were  to 
be  met  by  the  Society,  and  that  the  child's  board 
was  to  be  paid  at  Mme.  Goubaud's  for  three  weeks 
at  least,  by  which  time  Sir  Richard  might  be  heard 
from.  Dr.  Peters  was  to  attend  to  that  part  of  the 
business,  they  had  agreed.  It  was  the  Doctor's 
own  proposition.  He  felt  that  there  was  no  neces 
sity  for  further  exposure  of  the  skeletons  in  the 
Talbot's  family  closet. 

The  cold  clearing  of  the  night  before  had  given 
way  to  a  day  of  broken  weather — pale  sunshine 
and  sharp  snow-flurries.  The  dry  little  crystals 
tickled  the  Doctor's  face  as  he  strode  across  Wash- 


THE  MIDGE  131 

ington  Square  to  find  the  Beverend  Theodore 
Beatty  Pratt,  who  was  the  clergyman  in  charge  of 
the  Mission  Chapel  of  the  Church  of  St.  Gregorius. 

He  did  not  feel  quite  easy  in  his  mind  about 
getting  Pratt  to  perform  the  funeral  service, 
although  it  seemed  to  be,  on  the  whole,  the  best 
thing  to  do.  He  had  a  tender  conscience,  and  it 
hurt  him  to  think  that  perhaps,  in  spite  of  her 
petulant  cynicism,  the  dead  woman  had  been  a 
Catholic  at  heart,  and  that  she  might  have  resented 
the  idea  of  being  laid  to  rest  with  alien  rites.  But 
then  he  did  not  wish  to  go  to  Father  Dube.  Dube 
was  worth  a  dozen  of  Pratt;  but  Dube  had  his 
peculiarities.  He  was  a  hard-worked,  consci 
entious  priest,  much  wearied  in  spirit,  and  in  his 
two  hundred  pounds  of  flesh,  by  the  endless  needs 
of  his  ever-straggling  flock,  and  he  drew  the  line  of 
indulgence  at  impenitent  death.  It  was  enough, 
he  thought,  for  people  to  neglect  religion  and 
morality  and  soap-and-water  all  their  lives ;  when 
they  came  to  die,  the  least  they  could  do  was  to  die 
in  the  church,  and  give  their  poor  old  pastor  a 
chance  to  do  something  for  their  immortal  souls 
at  the  one  time  when  they  couldn't  possibly  undo 
it  themselves. 

This  was  Father  Dube's  idea,  although  he  never 
formulated  it  exactly  in  this  way.  And  so  Dr. 
Peters  felt  a  little  delicacy  about  calling  upon  him 
to  say  mass  for  a  stranger  who  had  gone  out  of  the 
world  in  a  distinctly  irreligious  frame  of  mind. 
And  Pratt  would  do  just  as  well.  It  would  never 
occur  to  Pratt  to  inquire  whether  or  no  the 


132  THE  MIDGE 

departed  sister  over  whom  lie  was  to  read  the 
service  had  really  been  a  good  Church-of -England 
woman.  He  lived  in  a  state  of  mild  surprise  at 
the  fact  that  there  actually  were  people  in  this 
world  who  did  not  belong  to  the  Church  of  Eng 
land.  If  Dr.  Peters  asked  him  to  read  the  service 
for  the  burial  of  the  dead,  he  would  read  it,  as  a 
matter  of  course.  He  talked  to  the  Doctor,  when 
ever  they  met,  about  abstruse  points  of  ecclesias 
tical  law  and  custom,  and  he  did  his  duty  in  the 
parish,  and  went  away,  afterward,  when  he  was 
called  to  other  fields  of  labor,  without  once  dream 
ing  that  Peters  had  never  understood  the  first 
word  of  his  deliverances. 

Dr.  Peters 's  religious  views  had  the  haziness  of 
extreme  catholicity.  In  his  childhood,  when  his 
parents  were  pillars  of  the  Episcopal  church  in 
their  little  village  in  Oneida  county,  he  had  been 
brought  up  to  look  upon  a  Romanist  as  something 
nearly  as  bad  as  a  Jew,  in  a  different  way,  and  not 
very  far  removed  in  guilt  from  the  heathen. 
Later  life,  and  much  experience  of  sore-tried 
humanity,  had  taught  him  a  lesson  of  wider 
charity.  He  had  grown  to  think  better  of  all 
creeds — and  less  of  any  particular  one.  Now,  he 
was  Father  Dube's  friend,  and  the  friend  of  the 
Eeverend  Theodore  Beatty  Pratt,  and  the  friend 
of  Brother  Strong,  of  the  Bethel.  And  he  liked 
the  Roman  Catholic  priest  best  of  the  three. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt,  seated  in  his  study  at 
a  very  big  desk,  stroked  his  thin  brown  whiskers 
and  rubbed  his  prominent  nose,  as  he  dubiously 


THE  MIDGE  133 

assented  to  Dr.  Peters 's  proposition  that  the 
woman  should  be  buried  that  day.  He  had  never 
quite  reconciled  himself,  he  said,  to  the  almost 
indecent  haste  so  frequently  practiced  in  the 
inhumation  of  the  dead  among  the  poorer  classes. 
He  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  call  it  irreligious; 
but  it  certainly  was  repugnant  to  proper  feel 
ing. 

"Well,  you  see,  Mr.  Pratt, "  said  the  Doctor, 
taking  him  patiently,  as  he  had  taken  the  Secretary 
of  the  Benevolent  Society,  "it  can't  very  well  be 
helped.  We  can't  ask  those  Goubaud  people  to 
keep  the  body  of  a  strange  woman  there.  They 
are  poor,  you  know,  and  they've  had  a  great  deal 
of  trouble  with  the  family  already.  And  then 
they're  Catholics." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Pratt. 

"And  there's  the  child.  It'll  be  better  for  her 
to  get  it  all  over  at  once,  don't  you  think  sol 
Eemember  Biedermann's  little  girl,  who  stole 
down  in  the  night  and  sat  by  her  father's  coffin, 
and  went  out  of  her  head?  She  hasn't  been  right 
since." 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  vaguely  remembered 
the  occurrence.  The  Biedermann's  were  of 
Father  Dube's  flock. 

"There's  no  doubt  about  it,"  he  observed: 
"those  unfortunate  people"  (he  meant  the  Cath 
olics)  "go  to  the  other  extreme,  and  postpone  the 
last  offices  in  a  very  unwise  way." 

"  It 's  hard  on  the  children, ' '  the  Doctor  went  on ; 
"and  then,  you  know,  it  isn't  as  if  we  meant  to 


134  THE  MIDGE 

show  any  disrespect.  You  know  how  it  is  among 
the  poor,  Mr.  Pratt. ' ' 

"Indeed  I  do;  indeed  I  do,"  said  Mr.  Pratt, 
promptly.  He  smiled  complacently. 

"Well,  I'll  be  there  at  four  o'clock,  Dr.  Peters. 
I'm  sure  people  ought  to  be  very  grateful  to  you — 
taking  all  this  trouble  about  things.  It 's  my  duty, 
of  course — it's  the  field  in  which  I  expect — and 
hope — to  be  of  service.  But  I'm  sure  it  shows  a 
very  humane  spirit  in  you,  Dr.  Peters,  it  does 
indeed. ' ' 

The  little  undertaker  had  to  receive  his  final 
directions,  and  then  the  Doctor  took  his  noonday 
sandwich  and  glass  of  beer  at  the  Brasserie 
Pigault,  and  went  home  to  write  a  laborious  letter 
to  Sir  Eichard  Talbot.  This  task  took  much  time, 
for  Dr.  Peters  had  the  true  American  sensitiveness 
about  risking  a  possible  snub.  He  would  have 
chatted  with  the  first  tramp  he  met  on  a  country 
road ;  but  he  did  not  like  to  introduce  himself  to  an 
English  baronet,  even  to  do  the  baronet  a  favor. 
Moreover,  he  had  to  make  it  very  clear  to  this 
aristocratic  stranger  that  he,  Peters,  was  a  dis 
interested  agent  in  the  business. 

"Can't  tell  anything  about  Englishmen,"  he 
reflected ;  "he  might  want  to  'tip  me  'arf -a-crown, ' 
or  something." 

It  was  nearly  four  o'clock  when  he  went  to  the 
house  of  Goubaud.  All  preparations  had  been 
made,  and  his  first  inquiry  was  for  the  child.  She 
was  by  her  mother's  coffin,  Alphonsine  told  him 


THE  MIDGE  135 

with  sympathy  both  effusive  and  honest — the  poor 
little  one,  it  was  heart-rending,  she  did  not  cry, — 
she  was  not  a  child  at  all — and  she  would  eat 
nothing.  But  it  was  cruel !  she  would  eat  nothing 
at  all — not  even  candy.  Alphonsine  had  pur 
chased  her  seven  cents'  worth  of  candy;  but  she 
would  not  eat  it.  Perhaps  she  would  eat  if  M.  le 
docteur  spoke  to  her. 

"Let  her  be,"  he  said;  "she'll  eat  when  nature 
tells  her  to.  She'll  come  to  it  in  time — she's 
young.  There's  candy  yet  in  the  world  for  her. 
But  I'll  go  up  and  see  if  I  ain't  clumsy  enough  to 
make  her  cry.  That's  much  more  necessary." 

When  he  entered  the  room  up  stairs  the  child 
was  sitting  by  the  coffin,  as  Alphonsine  had  said ; 
but  she  rose  instantly  and  came  to  meet  him  before 
he  could  cross  the  threshold,  stretching  out  her 
small  hand  in  silence,  giving  him  one  glance  as  she 
did  so,  and  then  lowering  her  tearless  dark  eyes. 
It  was  an  absolutely  unchildlike  greeting,  and  it 
conveyed  a  subtle  hint  that  she  did  not  wish  him  to 
come  nearer  to  her  dead. 

He  sat  down  on  a  chair  by  the  door  and  drew 
her  to  him.  She  passively  yielded  as  he  put  his 
arm  about  her ;  but  when  he  made  a  motion  to  lift 
her  to  his  knee,  she  stopped  him  with  a  quick 
instinctive  little  gesture.  There  was  something  of 
gentle,  innocent  rebuke  in  her  attitude,  as  though 
he  had  made  light  of  her  grief. 

"My  dear,"  he  began,  softly  and  somewhat 
nervously,  "we  must  take  your  mother  away  from 
you  before  very  long. ' ' 


136  THE  MIDGE 

"When?"  she  asked,  without  looking  at  him. 

"The  clergyman  will  be  here  at  four  o'clock." 

"So  soon?"  she  cried,  with  a  little  shiver,  and  a 
quick  look  of  appeal  and  question. 

'  *  Yes,  my  dear.  It 's  the  best  way.  Yes,  I  know 
it's  hard ;  but  it  would  be  harder  if  we  were  to  put 
it  off.  And  now  you'll  be  a  brave  girl,  won't  you, 
and " 

She  would  not  let  him  finish,  but  broke  in  with 
her  oddly  mature  self-restraint : 

"Yes.  Better.  I  see.  They  do  not  want  her 
here.  It  is  well." 

"'Tisn't  that,  my  child.  Madame  Goubaud 
does  not  mean  to  be  unkind " 

"I  know.  She  knows  not  better.  I  compre 
hend,  monsieur." 

The  Doctor  felt  curiously  embarrassed.  He 
wished  she  would  act  like  a  child.  A  vague 
idea  passed  through  his  mind,  that  he  would 
like  to  know  whether  she  had  ever  played  with  a 
doll. 

"How  old  are  you?"  he  asked,  in  perplexity. 

"I  have  twelve  years,"  she  answered  curtly. 
Then,  after  a  pause,  with  a  sudden  petulance, — "I 
am  no  more  a  child." 

The  Doctor  smiled.     She  was  a  child,  after  all. 

"Well,  now,"  he  said,  "I'm  forty,  and  I'm  a 
good  deal  of  a  child  yet." 

She  gave  him  another  quick,  timid  look,  as  if 
apprehensive  of  some  levity  or  insincerity. 

"Yes,  my  dear,"  he  went  on,  holding  her  more 
firmly  within  his  arm — she  did  not  resist:  "I'm  a 


THE  MIDGE  137 

good  deal  older  than  you,  and  I've  got  gray 
hairs — look  at  'em — but  I  should  feel  sorry,  I 
should,  if  I  got  too  old  to  remember  what  it  was  to 
be  a  child.  Gray  hairs  don't  make  a  man  old.  I 
know  how  I  felt  when  I  was  just  your  age,  and  I 
know  just  how  you  feel  now.  I  lost  my  own 
mother  when  I  was  two  years  older  than  you  are, 
and  I  remember  all  about  it,  as  if  it  was  yesterday. 
I'd  like  to  tell  you  how  it  was." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"Shall  I  tell  you  about  it?" 

She  kept  her  face  averted  and  her  eyes  cast 
down ;  but  she  nodded  assent. 

'  *  She  'd  been  sick  a  long  time ;  but  when  she  died, 
it  was  very  sudden,  and  I  wasn  't  there.  I  've  often 
wished  since  then  I'd  been  there  to  kiss  her  good 
bye,  or  help  take  care  of  her,  or  do  something  to 
show  that  I  loved  her.  But  I  didn't  know  any 
thing  about  it  until  they  told  me.  And  then  I 
felt — I  can't  tell  you  how  I  felt.  But  it  seemed  to 
me  as  if  I  was  the  lonesomest  boy  on  earth.  And  I 
didn't  dare  to  cry,  either :  I'd  have  felt  a  lot  better 
if  I  could  have  cried;  but  I  didn't  dare  to.  My 
father  was  a  severe,  stern  sort  of  man,  and  he 
didn't  believe  in  people's  crying,  or  laughing, 
either.  If  I'd  have  cried,  he'd  have  sent  me  to 
bed.  And  I  couldn't  stand  that — lying  in  bed  and 
thinking  how  lonesome  I  was.  Besides,  I  was 
fourteen  years  old,  and  I  thought  I  was  too  big  a 
boy  to  cry." 

He  stole  a  glance  at  the  pale  face.  He  saw  that 
the  child  was  listening  to  him. 


138  THE  MIDGE 

"Well,  I  went  out  in  the  yard,  just  to  get  away 
from  the  people.  Folks  in  my  time  were  a  sort  of 
hard — I  don't  think  they  quite  understood  us 
young  ones — they  didn't  seem  to  care  much  about 
us.  So  I  went  out  into  the  yard.  And  there  was 
an  old  nigger,  named  Japhet,  who  used  to  chop 
wood  for  my  father.  Uncle  Japhe,  we  called  him. 
He  was  out  there  in  the  woodshed.  And  when  he 
saw  me,  what  do  you  think  that  old  nigger  did? 
Why,  he  didn't  say  one  word — he  just  caught  hold 
of  me  and  hauled  me  right  up  to  him,  with  an  arm 
around  my  head,  and  my  face  against  his  ragged 
old  coat,  and  he  held  me  there,  and  I  just  cried — 
cried  like  a  baby,  and  with  that  old  nigger  holding 
on  to  me.  It  couldn  't  bring  mother  back,  but ' ' 

She  was  melting.  Her  head  was  still  bent 
down ;  but  he  could  hear  her  breath  come  short  and 
quick ;  and  with  one  hand  she  plucked  at  his  coat- 
sleeve,  pinching  the  cloth  between  her  fingers,  let 
ting  it  slip  and  picking  it  up  again  as  if  she  found 
relief  in  the  mechanical  action. 

"It  didn't  seem  so  lonesome  then,  when  I  had 
Uncle  Japhe,  for  all  he  was  only  an  old  nigger. 
There's  lots  of  help  in  this  world,  if  we'll  only 
just  let  ourselves  be  helped.  Don't  you  think 


He  slipped  his  arm  around  her  neck,  and  with 
a  sudden  sob  that  was  almost  a  cry,  she  pressed 
her  face  against  his  breast.  But  just  then 
the  door  opened,  and  she  struggled  free,  and 
stood  up,  her  eyes  moist  and  her  teeth  together, 


THE  MIDGE  139 

to   face  the   Reverend   Theodore   Beatty   Pratt. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  stood  in  the  doorway, 
looking  disapprovingly  on  two  small  candles  that 
flickered  at  the  head  of  the  coffin.  He  had  confided 
his  overcoat  to  M.  Goubaud,  who  stood  behind  him. 
He  had  moreover  impressed  M.  Goubaud  into  the 
service  of  the  Church ;  and  had  made  the  unwilling 
Frenchman  assist  him  in  putting  on  his  surplice. 
M.  Goubaud 's  face  expressed  disgust,  subdued  by 
politeness.  He  did  not  like  the  appearance  of  a 
Protestant  clergyman  in  his  Catholic  house;  and 
he  was  inclined  to  look  on  the  Church  of  England 
ritual  with  critical  contempt. 

Mr.  Pratt  waited  a  moment  to  make  up  his  mind 
that  it  would  be  inadvisable  to  demand  the  sup 
pression  of  the  candles,  and  then  advanced  with 
amiable  dignity  and  laid  his  hand  on  the  girl's 
head. 

"You  are  very  young,  my  child,"  he  said,  sol 
emnly,  "to  bear  such  a  heavy  weight  of  affliction." 

There  was  no  answer. 

"We  cannot  tell,  any  of  us,  why  these  trials  are 
sent,"  he  further  observed,  and  then,  becoming 
conscious  of  the  little  one's  complete  unrespon- 
siveness,  he  concluded,  blandly : 

"I  will  talk  with  you  at  some  future  time,  my 
child.  Dr.  Peters V9 

Dr.  Peters  answered  with  a  look  of  assent. 
Everything  was  ready.  The  little  undertaker  and 
his  assistant  were  posted  near  the  door,  and  the 
household  of  Goubaud,  domestic  and  operative, 


140  THE  MIDGE 

had  filed  in  and  ranged  along  the  walls  of  the  small 
room;  the  workmen  hiding  their  hands  behind 
their  hacks,  the  palms  outward.  Alphonsine 
rolled  her  round  red  arms  in  her  apron,  and  looked 
tearfully  across  at  the  little  orphan,  who  still  stood 
hy  the  Doctor's  side,  erect  and  silent.  She  did  not 
lean  against  him;  but  as  the  service  went  on,  she 
let  his  arm  draw  closer  about  her,  and  when  the 
ashes  fell  from  the  clergyman's  hand  upon  the 
coffin  top,  she  caught  her  friend's  fingers  in  an 
impulsive  clutch. 

Even  poor  Pratt 's  thin  voice  could  not  spoil  the 
beauty  of  the  words  he  spoke.  As  his  high  tones 
rang  out  through  the  silent  house,  in  rhythmic  rise 
and  fall,  the  little  man  seemed  to  take  on  some 
thing  of  the  dignity  of  the  greater  spirits  whose 
speech  he  echoed.  Peters  sat  and  listened,  and  for 
got  the  cold  little  room,  the  dull,  poverty-stricken 
faces  around  him,  the  ghastly  pine  coffin  on  its 
staring  trestles :  memory  slipping  back  to  the  coun 
try  church  on  summer  Sundays,  where  the  wind 
shook  the  leaves  about  the  open  casements,  the 
birds  twittered  outside,  all  through  service  and  ser 
mon,  while  the  old  pastor's  sonorous  cadences  fell 
on  the  unheeding  ears  of  a  yellow-haired  boy,  sit 
ting  in  the  front  pew,  his  restless  legs  swinging  half 
a  foot  above  the  floor,  his  whole  boy's  soul  yearning 
to  be  out  in  the  fields  and  the  fresh  air,  angrily 
resenting  the  necessity  of  wasting  a  morning  of 
sunshine  and  clear  sky.  He  looked  down  at  the 
subdued  young  face  at  his  side,  and  pitied  the  child 
who  had  so  soon  learned  the  lesson  of  self-restraint 


THE  MIDGE  141 

and  patience.  After  her  hand  had  grasped  his, 
she  let  it  lie  there  through  the  brief  service;  but 
she  did  not  cry,  and  her  eyes  never  once  left  the 
coffin.  ^Vhen  the  last  word  was  said,  she  went 
unresistingly  with  Alphonsine,  and  put  on  her 
worn  little  hat  and  jacket. 

There  was  one  shabby  carriage  behind  the 
shabby  hearse.  Mme.  Goubaud,  in  "her  Sunday 
clothes,  got  in  first,  and  took  the  child  on  the  seat 
with  her.  Then  the  Eev.  Mr.  Pratt  climbed  in,  and 
M.  Goubaud  followed.  Business  was  dull,  and  the 
chance  of  riding  in  state  as  chief  mourners  at  a 
funeral — even  a  Protestant  funeral — was  not  to  be 
missed.  This  had  been  Mme.  Goubaud 's  opinion, 
and  when  Mme.  Goubaud  thought  that  anything 
justified  an  interruption  of  business,  her  husband 
never  questioned  the  propriety  of  her  decision. 
Her  face  bore  a  look  of  stern  importance  as  she 
sat  on  the  back  seat  of  the  carriage  and  gazed 
fixedly  before  her,  ignoring  a  staring  world. 

Dr.  Peters  stood  irresolutely  on  the  sidewalk. 
Mr.  Pratt  looked  as  if  he  expected  his  fellow 
church-member  to  be  one  of  the  party;  but  there 
was  no  place  for  the  Doctor,  unless  he  took  the 
child  on  his  lap,  and  he  hesitated.  The  driver 
settled  it  by  starting  up  his  horses,  and  the  Doctor 
turned  away,  but  not  too  soon  to  see  the  girl  look 
up  with  pained,  surprised  eyes,  that  mutely 
accused  him  of  deserting  her. 

"I  ought  to  have  gone,"  he  said  to  himself. 
But  it  was  too  late,  the  carriage  was  rattling  down 
the  street  after  the  jolting  hearse,  and  he  could 


142  THE  MIDGE 

only  stare  at  it  until  it  grew  gray  behind  a  veil  of 
whirling  snowflakes. 

"I  ought  to  have  gone,"  he  thought,  and  the 
remembrance  of  that  piteous  look  went  with  him 
all  the  rest  of  the  day. 


IV 

HE  found  it  hard  to  get  rid  of  that  look.  He 
was  not  sentimental;  he  had  always  had 
that  understanding  with  himself,  that  he 
was  not  sentimental.  And  there  are  those  who 
would  call  his  code  of  morals  lax.  But  there  were 
some  matters  in  which  he  had  an  uneasy,  child 
like  sensitiveness  of  conscience.  To  be  suspected, 
even,  of  the  most  trivial  carelessness  in  the  pay 
ment  of  his  debts;  to  be  thought  unkind  or  dis 
courteous  to  children  and  women, — these  things 
wounded  him  sorely.  Not  that  he  very  greatly 
troubled  himself  about  the  world's  opinion  of  him, 
but  that  any  suggestion  of  remissness  in  these  par 
ticulars  filled  him  with  self-accusing  doubts.  It 
was  a  part  of  his  old-bachelor  fussiness,  perhaps. 

Therefore  he  was  troubled  to  think  that  he  had 
left  the  child  to  the  charitable  offices  of  the  Gou- 
baud  family  and  the  Eeverend  Mr.  Pratt,  at  the 
most  trying  ordeal  of  the  day.  They  all  meant 
well,  those  three  people,  but  they  were  a  good  deal 
like  the  folks  who  had  made  his  boyhood  gloomy. 
They  did  not  understand  children.  Being  a  child 
himself,  the  Doctor  felt  this  strongly.  He  thought 
of  the  long,  cold  ride  to  the  New  Jersey  cemetery ; 
the  unrelieved  ugliness  of  the  hurried  interment, 
the  probable  remarks  of  the  Eeverend  Mr.  Pratt 

143 


144  THE  MIDGE 

on  the  way  home,  and  he  felt  that  he  could  have 
smoothed  the  rough  path  of  the  little  girl  with  the 
long  name,  if  he  had  taken  her  on  his  knee  in  the 
carriage.  "Well,  it  could  not  be  helped  now;  but, 
all  the  same,  he  was  uncomfortable.  He  went 
home  and  tried  to  work,  but  he  made  a  poor  hand 
at  it. 

The  light  was  bad,  for  one  thing,  and  he  was  not 
in  the  mood  for  work  upon  the  cannon.  He 
reflected,  with  some  perturbation  of  spirit,  that  he 
had  of  late  been  conscious  of  a  certain  lack  of 
interest  in  the  cannon.  The  perfection  of  that 
invention  had  been  his  hobby  for  thirteen  years. 
He  had  worked  over  it,  thought  over  it,  pottered 
and  played  with  it.  It  had  stimulated  his  ambition 
and  amused  him  in  his  idleness.  To  be  sure,  it 
had  never  come  to  anything,  and  it  gave  no  signs 
of  coming  to  anything.  It  had  changed  its  form 
over  and  over  again,  but  somehow  it  was  always  a 
little  behind  the  latest  discoveries  in  gun  building. 
The  Doctor  tried  to  keep  up  with  the  march  of 
progress,  but  he  was  always — he  frankly  admitted 
to  himself — far  back  in  the  tail  of  the  procession. 
Once  he  had  got  a  small  appropriation  from  the 
government ;  and  he  had  built  his  gun  and  taken  it 
to  Fort  Hamilton  for  trial,  and  there  it  had  burst. 
It  had  not  injured  any  one,  because,  as  the  inventor 
grimly  remarked,  no  one  had  had  faith  enough  in  it 
to  stand  near  it  when  it  went  off.  There  was  a 
flaw  in  the  casting;  it  was  not  his  fault;  but  the 
appropriation  was  exhausted,  and  the  gun  was 
untried;  and  before  he  could  apply  for  another 


THE  MIDGE  145 

appropriation,  the  march  of  progress  made  it 
necessary  to  reinvent  the  gun  after  the  latest 
fashion. 

He  had  gone  at  it  cheerfully  enough,  and 
modeled  and  remodeled,  and  it  was  only  recently 
that  he  had  begun  to  feel  as  if  his  patient  tinkering 
was  but  a  sham  sort  of  work. 

" Great  Scott!"  he  thought,  in  dismal  amuse 
ment,  "am  I  getting  too  old  to  make-believe  any 
longer?" 

It  really  looked  as  though  he  had  reached  a 
second  time  that  sad  period  when  we  realize  that 
our  toys  are  not  toys,  and  not — what  was  it  that 
we  thought  them? 

The  Doctor's  domain  was  extensive.  Five 
years  after  his  return  from  the  war  he  had  taken 
the  two  upper  floors  of  the  old  house,  on  a  fifteen 
years'  lease.  He  had  tried  to  get  a  lease  for  a 
longer  term,  but  even  the  conservative  old  German 
who  was  his  landlord  knew  that  rents  would  go  up 
as  the  years  went  on;  and  fifteen  years  was  the 
longest  period  for  which  he  would  agree  to  let  Dr. 
Peters  have  the  rooms  at  the  modest  rate  that  they 
then  commanded. 

He  had  wanted  a  home,  this  lonely  bachelor 
stranded  after  the  great  war.  Bachelors  some 
times  want  homes ;  they  even  long  for  them  with  a 
conscious,  understanding,  intelligent  desire  that 
their  married  friends  never  credit  them  with. 
"You  don't  know  what  it  is  to  have  a  home/'  says 
Smith,  who  married  at  twenty-five,  to  Jones,  who 
is  unmarried  at  forty.  But  Jones  does  know  what 


146  THE  MIDGE 

it  would  be  to  have  a  home,  for  does  he  not  know 
what  it  is  not  to  have  a  home  ?  Ay,  far  more  than 
complacent  Smith,  who  made  his  nest  from  mere 
blind  instinct,  long  before  he  could  have  become 
conscious  of  his  own  need  of  a  nest — far  more 
than  happy,  comfortable,  satisfied  Smith,  does  this 
lone  bird  of  celibacy  of  a  Jones  know  of  the 
superiority  of  a  consecrated  abiding-place  to  his 
cold,  casual  twig. 

There  is  always  something  comically,  dismally 
pathetic  about  the  bachelor's  attempt  to  construct 
a  home.  I  was  once  at  the  performance  of  an 
opera  attempted  by  a  weak  little  theatrical  troupe 
that  was  in  bad  luck.  The  tenor  had  failed  them 
at  the  last  moment,  so  a  good-looking  supernumary 
stood  up  in  the  tenor's  clothes  while  the  poor  hard 
working,  middle-aged  soprano  sang  both  parts  of 
their  duets.  That  is  what  the  bachelor  tries  to 
do — to  sing  both  parts  of  a  duet. 

It  is  always  a  failure ;  and  so  the  Doctor  found 
it.  He  had  his  bed-room,  his  sitting-room  and  his 
work-room,  and  upstairs  was  his  kitchen  and  his 
servants'  room.  They  were  all  good  rooms,  each 
after  its  kind.  They  were  furnished  as  he  liked ; 
they  were  warm  enough  in  winter  and  cool  enough 
in  summer.  Each  one  had  four  walls,  a  floor  and 
a  ceiling.  And  yet  they  were  not  a  home ;  and  he 
had  not  been  a  day  in  them  before  he  knew  this. 

For  a  little  while  he  tried  to  discover  and  supply 
the  elusive  deficiency;  but  after  a  time  he  realized 
that  the  upholsterer  could  not  do  it  for  him ;  that 
it.  was  not  a  matter  of  easy  chairs,  of  pictures  on 


THE  MIDGE  147 

the  walls;  that  the  light  and  warmth  that  were 
lacking  were  not  born  of  lamps  and  fires.  It  was  a 
twig,  after  all;  not  a  nest;  and  he  made  up  his 
mind  to  it. 

He  had  furnished  his  kitchen  with  elaborate 
care,  reproducing,  as  far  as  memory  would  serve 
him,  the  generous  equipment  of  the  old  Dutch 
household  in  which  he  had  passed  his  boyhood. 
He  had  a  fancy  to  install  there  the  blackest  and 
oldest  Virginia  negress  that  he  could  find ;  but  he 
never  carried  out  the  scheme.  The  shriveled  Ger 
man  woman  whom  he  had  engaged  to  *  *  do  for  ' '  him 
temporarily  continued  to  do  for  him;  and  now, 
after  eight  years,  it  seemed  probable  that  she 
would  continue  to  do  for  him  as  long  as  he  could 
sustain  life  on  her  cooking. 

He  threw  down  his  tools  and  wandered  listlessly 
about  the  rooms.  In  the  sitting-room  he  noticed 
how  faded  was  the  green  reps  covering  the  furni 
ture,  and  how  worn  was  the  old-fashioned  Brussels 
carpet.  He  glanced  through  the  open  door  of  the 
bed-room.  It  looked  what  it  was — a  place  to  sleep 
in.  No  one  would  ever  have  thought  of  stretching 
out  on  that  painfully  clean  and  prim  little  bed  to 
while  away  an  afternoon  with  pipe  and  book.  He 
stared  out  of  the  window  at  Washington  Square, 
and  saw  the  bare  trees  waiting  sullenly  in  the  gray 
twilight  for  the  next  snow-squall  to  buffet  them 
about  and  rack  and  rattle  their  poor  dry  twigs. 

All  these  things  he  observed  without  fairly 
realizing  their  ugliness ;  but  with  a  vague  sense  of 
lonely  discomfort,  which  he  did  not  quite  un- 


148  THE  MIDGE 

derstand.     It  had  been  growing  on  him  of  late. 

"Perhaps  it's  Luise 's  cooking, "  he  thought: 
"I  ought  to  be  inured  to  it;  but  maybe  it's  like 
arsenic  or  morphine — sort  of  cumulative  poison. 
I  guess  I  'm  getting  dyspeptic. ' ' 

He  went  up  stairs  to  take  a  look  at  the  kitchen 
and  see  if  he  could  conjure  up  again  his  old  dream 
of  a  "nigger  cook"  of  his  own.  Perhaps  that 
might  be  the  salvation  of  his  bachelor  life,  after  all. 

It  was  a  good  kitchen,  there  was  no  doubt  about 
that.  Luise  had  never  brought  out  its  possibilities. 
There  was  a  huge  range,  that  would  have  cooked 
a  dinner  for  a  regiment.  Hanging  up  on  the  wall 
was  the  Dutch  oven  that  he  had  had  made  eight 
years  ago,  on  the  model  of  the  one  in  his  mother 's 
house,  sketched  from  memory.  Luise  had  never 
used  the  Dutch  oven.  There  were  ample  cup 
boards,  stocked  with  yellow  crockery,  bowls  and 
pitchers  and  shallow  dishes,  more  than  Luise  could 
ever  use.  And  she  grumbled  at  having  to  keep 
them  clean.  The  back  hall-bedroom  had  been 
fitted  up  for  a  pantry.  It  was  quite  as  large  as  his 
mother's  pantry;  and  he  had  fondly  dreamed  of 
filling  it  with  jars  of  jam  and  preserves  and 
pickles,  and  of  ranging  pallid  disks  of  pie  on  the 
long  shelves.  The  jars  were  there,  along  with  the 
pie-plates — yes,  there  was  even  a  great  stick  of 
sealing-wax  to  seal  the  preserves  up  with,  in  the 
old-fashioned  way — but  jars  and  plates  were 
empty. 

The  whole  place  really  seemed  to  cry  aloud  for  a 
good  plain  cook.  He  pondered,  as  he  descended 


THE  MIDGE  149 

the  stairs,  over  the  problem.  Could  he  get  the  cook, 
and  would  she,  once  got,  realize  his  fond  dreams  I 
And — coming  down  to  a  necessary  preliminary — 
had  he  the  moral  courage  to  get  rid  of  Luise? 

He  was  sensible  of  a  guilty  feeling  of  shame  and 
fear  when  Luise  brought  him  his  dinner  that  night. 
He  looked  at  her  shamefacedly  as  he  tried  to  make 
up  his  mind  whether  any  other  woman  could  be 
quite  as  ugly  as  she  was,  or  whether  nature  held 
somewhere  among  her  monstrosities  and  mistakes 
a  pendant  to  that  parboiled  face. 

He  tried  to  think  charitably  of  Luise ;  but  there 
was  no  room  for  doubt  about  the  dinner.  It  was 
simply  bad.  Many  people  like  German  cooking; 
but  nobody  could  like  Luise 's  German  cooking. 
She  had  a  way  of  announcing  the  names  of  the 
dishes,  as  she  set  them  down  with  a  vicious  slam, 
and  she  had  told  him  that  the  viand  of  the  evening 
was  a  " Wiener  Schnitzel."  He  credited  her  with 
forethought  in  this,  for  if  she  had  not  done  so,  he 
would  not  have  been  able  to  guess  the  fact  that 
what  was  before  him  had  once  been  a  veal  cutlet. 

He  smoked  two  pipes  after  his  dinner,  and  then 
he  went  around  to  the  Brasserie  Pigault.  For 
fourteen  years  he  had  gone  to  the  Brasserie 
Pigault.  When  he  first  set  up  his  bachelor  estab 
lishment,  he  had  resolved  to  stay  at  home  of  nights, 
and  for  a  month  or  two  the  Brasserie  had  missed 
him,  and  he  had  sat  in  his  green  reps  easy-chair, 
that  was  not,  and  never  could  have  been  meant  to 
be  easy,  before  his  meagre  little  hard-coal  fire. 
But  it  was  not  staying  at  home,  after  all ;  it  was 


150  THE  MIDGE 

only  staying  in  the  house ;  and  by  and  by  he  went 
back  to  the  Brasserie  Pigault,  which  was  a  home 
indeed,  after  its  sort,  to  him  and  to  many  another 
lonely  bachelor. 

If  you  put  it  that  a  man  habitually  spends  his 
evenings  in  a  beer-shop,  it  does  not  sound  well.  It 
not  only  suggests  orgies  and  deep  potations,  but  it 
is  low.  One  thinks  of  Robert  Burns,  of  the  police- 
reports,  of  neglected  wives  waiting  at  home,  of 
brawls  and  drunkenness  and  of  a  cheap  grade  of 
tobacco. 

This  is  largely  due  to  the  influence  of  a  number 
of  estimable  gentlemen  who  wander  about  this 
broad  land,  patronizing  second-class  hotels  and 
denouncing  in  scathing  terms  the  Demon  Drink. 
They  sternly  refuse  to  admit  any  distinction  be 
tween  one  place  where  liquor  is  sold  and  another 
place  where  liquor  is  sold.  Yet  I  think  the  most 
vehement  of  these  public-spirited  men  would  be 
inclined  to  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  bright  side 
to  the  beer  question  if  he  could  be  induced  to  pass 
a  few  evenings,  non-prof essionally,  in  such  a  place 
as  the  Brasserie  Pigault. 

True,  he  could  not  see  there  the  red-eyed  con 
tention  that  furnishes  him  with  so  much  useful  ora 
torical  material.  No  upraised  bludgeon,  no  gleam 
ing  stiletto  would  gladden  his  eyes.  No  degraded 
specimen  of  humanity  would  point  a  prohibition 
ist's  moral  by  going  to  sleep  on  the  floor.  No 
ribaldry  would  agreeably  shock  his  expectant  ears. 

He  would  see  Mme.  Pigault,  neat  and'  comely, 
knitting  behind  her  desk.  He  would  see  Mr.  Mar- 


THE  MIDGE  151 

tin  and  M.  Ovide  Marie  at  their  everlasting  game 
of  dominoes.  He  would  see  little  Potain,  whose 
wife  died  two  years  ago,  after  forty-seven  years  of 
married  life,  and  who  would  be  more  lonely  than 
he  is,  if  it  were  not  for  Mme.  Pigault 's  hospitality, 
drinking  his  one  glass  of  vermouth  gomme,  and 
reading  all  the  papers  without  missing  a  column. 
He  would  see  poor  old  Parker  Prout,  the  artist, 
who  has  been  painting  all  day  long  for  the  Nassau 
Street  auction  shops — they  will  not  hang  Prout 's 
pictures,  even  at  the  National  Academy — and  who 
has  come  to  the  Brasserie  Pigault  to  buy  one  glass 
of  beer  for  himself,  and  to  wait  and  hope  that 
somebody  will  come  in  who  will  buy  another  for 
him.  He  would  see  good-natured  Jack  Wilder,  the 
bright  young  reporter  of  the  Morning  Record, 
dropping  in  to  perform  that  act  of  charity,  and  to 
square  accounts  by  mildly  chaffing  old  Prout  about 
the  art  which  he  still  loves,  after  forty  years  of 
servitude  to  the  auctioneer  and  the  maker  of 
chromo-lithographs.  He  would  see  Dr.  Peters  tak 
ing  his  regular  rations — two  glasses  of  lager,  the 
first  of  each  keg — and  studying  the  Courrier  to 
keep  up  his  French. 

And  on  this  particular  night  there  was  a  rare 
guest  to  be  seen  under  Mme.  Pigault 's  roof,  for 
Father  Dube  came  in,  big,  ponderous  and  genial, 
rubbing  his  fat  red  hands,  and  smiling  a  sociable 
benediction  upon  the  place  and  all  within  it. 

Mme.  Pigault,  alert  and  flattered,  rose  to  wel 
come  him,  and  he  unbuttoned  his  heavy  overcoat, 
with  its  great  cape,  and  leaned  on  the  desk  to  chat 


152  THE  MIDGE 

with  her  for  a  moment.  How  was  the  baby  and 
little  Eulalie?  And  business  was  always  good? 
That  was  to  be  expected.  People  knew  where  they 
were  comfortable,  and  everybody  was  comfortable 
ckez  Mme.  Pigault.  And  now  he  saw  his  good 
friend  the  Doctor  sitting  there.  The  Doctor 
looked  as  if  he  would  like  a  little  game  of  dominoes. 
He  would  go  and  challenge  his  good  friend  the 
Doctor.  And  yes,  why  not!  He  would  take  a 
glass  of  that  excellent  Chablis  of  Mme.  Pigault 's, 
that  he  had  tasted  when  he  had  last  visited  Mme. 
Pigault.  Was  it  so  long  ago  as  Easter?  Ah,  but 
the  time  goes !  And  an  old  man  is  slow.  He  can 
not  see  his  friends  as  often  as  he  could  wish.  And 
Mme.  Pigault,  being  prosperous  and  blessed  by 
heaven,  had  no  need  of  him.  Ah,  the  Doctor  is 
waiting.  And  Mme.  Pigault  will  not  forget  the 
Chablis? 

And  so  this  simple-minded  old  priest,  who  knew 
no  better  than  to  sit  down  in  his  parishioner's 
brasserie  and  take  a  glass  of  wine  and  play  a  game 
of  dominoes  with  a  heretic,  lumbered  over  to  the 
Doctor's  table,  and  struggled  out  of  his  overcoat, 
with  Louis's  help,  and  sat  down  opposite  his  good 
friend  Peters.  And  Louis  bustled  eagerly  about, 
and  opened  a  new  bottle  of  the  Chablis,  and 
brought  the  box  with  the  best  dominoes,  that  Mme. 
Pigault  took  from  her  desk ;  and  cleaned  a  slate ; 
and  Mme.  Pigault  looked  on  proudly  as  her  favor 
ite  customer  and  her  spiritual  guide  shuffled  and 
drew. 

Father  Dube  had  come  to  this  country  at  the  age 


THE  MIDGE  153 

of  twelve;  and  it  was  his  boast  that  his  English 
was  as  good  as  his  French,  for  if  the  English  was 
a  trifle  stiff,  the  French  was  not  quite  academic. 

"I  hear,"  he  said,  "that  you  have  been  poaching 
on  my  preserves,  and  stealing  a  whole  French  fam 
ily  from  my  fold." 

There  was  just  a  trace  of  the  foreigner  in  the 
precision  and  emphasis  with  which  he  brought  out 
the  figure  of  speech,  in  conversational  quotation 
marks.  It  was  a  joke  of  long  standing  between 
these  two  that  the  priest  on  one  side  and  the  Doctor 
and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  on  the  other,  were  en 
gaged  in  an  active  warfare  of  proselytism. 

"No,  sir,"  the  Doctor  answered,  smiling,  "I 
deny  the  imputation.  The  family  you  refer  to  has 
long  been  a  pillar  of  the  Church  of  England." 

"It  is  for  that  reason,  then,"  Father  Dube  sug 
gested,  slyly,  "that  the  French  Benevolent  Society 
has  taken  charge  of  the  case.  I  saw  Peloubet  this 
afternoon." 

The  Doctor  flushed  a  little. 

"The  mother  was  born  in  France,  as  near  as  I 
can  find  out;  and  the  child  certainly  was.  But 
they're  Protestants,  all  the  same." 

The  priest's  broad  hand  was  stretched  across 
the  table,  overturning  and  exposing  half-a-dozen 
of  the  dominoes  he  had  been  laboriously  standing 
on  end,  and  he  gently  patted  the  Doctor's  sleeve. 

"My  good  friend,  that  is  all  right.  I  know.  I 
know.  It  is  your  'set,'  is  it  not?" 

The  Doctor  smiled  and  flushed  a  little  redder, 
conscious  of  his  own  sensitiveness. 


154  THE  MIDGE 

"Double-six.  Oh,  you  want  me  to  keep  the 
slate  ? ' '  Father  Dube  had  pushed  it  across  to  him. 
"I  say,  Dube,  I'm  glad  you  spoke  of  it.  I  want 
to  ask  you  something. ' ' 

"Fifteen.    What  is  it?" 

"It's  about  the  child."  The  Doctor  was  silent 
for  a  minute,  knitting  his  brows  as  he  played  on 
mechanically.  "I  don't  know  that  I've  done  par 
ticularly  well  in  letting  the  Society  leave  her  where 
she  is.  You  know  that  Goubaud  family  better 
than  I  do." 

' '  They  are  decent  people. ' ' 

'  '  Oh,  I  know  that.  But,  you  see,  here 's  the  way 
it  is.  This  child's  a  girl — thin  little  thing,  about 
twelve  years  old  or  so,  and  high  strung — the  most 
high-strung,  old-fashioned,  queer  little  witch  I  ever 
saw.  And  old  woman  Goubaud — well,  she  isn't 
exactly  what  you'd  call  high-strung  herself." 

"If  I  know  what  you  mean  by  *  high-strung' — 
no." 

"Nervous — sensitive — delicate — all  that  kind  of 
thing.  These  people, — these  Talbots, — seem  to 
have  been  pretty  poor ;  but  they  were  rather  a  swell 
lot  at  the  start,  and  I  don't  think  this  mite  has  been 
accustomed  to  any  sort  of  rough,  unsympathetic 
treatment.  I  shouldn't  like  to  leave  her  there  if 
I  thought  the  old  woman  was  going  to  make  it  hard 
for  her." 

"I  shall  have  to  draw."  The  priest  shrugged 
his  shoulders,  and  took  a  pinch  of  snuff,  offering 
the  box  to  the  Doctor,  who  bowed,  and  waved  it 
away.  The  proffer  had  been  made  and  declined 


THE  MIDGE  155 

many  hundred  times  in  the  course  of  their  inti 
macy.  ' '  The  destruction  of  the  poor  is  their  pov 
erty,  "  the  Father  went  on:  "poverty  is  hard,  and 
they  have  grown  hard  in  their  poverty.  They  do 
not  mean  it, — but — what  will  you  have  ?  They  are 
poor.  Why  do  you  not  send  the  child  to  your  mis 
sion?  Your  friend,  Mr.  Pratt— " 

"The  mission's  no  place  for  a  child  like  that. 
There 's  too  much  promiscuous  Mary  Ann  and 
Sairey  Jane  there.  Those  tough  little  cats  would 
worry  the  life  out  of  her.  I  had  half  a  notion  of 
getting  Madame  Pigault  here  to  take  care  of  her 
up  stairs.  Threes,  is  it?  Now  I've  got  to  draw. 
What,  with  stray  kids  and  bad  cards  at  dominoes, 
there's  no  rest  for  a  quiet,  respectable  citizen. 
What  do  you  think  of  bringing  her  here?  It's  a 
nice  place  up  stairs,  and  I  don't  believe  Madame 
Pigault  will  instill  ideas  of  intemperance  into  her 
youthful  mind." 

"It  would  be  well,"  assented  the  priest,  after 
another  pinch  of  snuff,  and  an  interval  of  reflec 
tion.  "But,  perhaps  you  would  do  better  to  wait 
and  see  how  the  child  gets  along.  It  is  only  for 
a  few  weeks,  I  understand;  and  perhaps  she  will 
not  be  unhappy  there.  You  must  not  forget  that 
it  will  be  much  for  Goubaud  to  have  the  money  the 
Society  will  pay  for  her  board.  He  is  an  hon 
est,  hard-working  man,  that  Goubaud,  and  he 
scarcely  makes  enough  in  the  year  to  pay  his  rent 
and  live." 

"I'll  go  round  there  in  the  morning,  and  see," 
said  the  Doctor,  trying  to  dismiss  the  subject  from 


156  THE  MIDGE 

his  mind:     "Ten!  and  that's  domino,  I  believe. 
My  cards  weren't  so  unlucky,  after  all." 


A  strong  wind  from  the  northeast  brought  the 
faint  sound  of  St.  George's  bells  down  to  Wash 
ington  Square,  as  the  Doctor  turned  out  of  South 
Fifth  avenue.  It  was  as  though  Stuyvesant 
Square,  snugly  locked  up  for  the  night,  sent  a  mid 
night  message  of  reproach  to  the  broader  and  more 
democratic  ground  whose  hard  walks  knew  no  rest 
from  echoing  footsteps,  in  light  or  dark.  Here 
the  branches  swayed  and  creaked  in  the  night 
breeze,  the  gas-lamps  flickered  and  winked;  from 
time  to  time  a  tramp,  or,  from  the  foul  streets 
below  and  to  the  eastward,  something  worse,  in 
woman's  shape,  hurried  across  the  bleak  space, 
along  the  winding  asphalt,  walking  over  the  Pot 
ter's  Field  of  the  past,  on  their  way  to  Potter's 
Fields  to  be. 

He  had  staid  at  the  brasserie  longer  than  was 
his  wont,  having  this  night  a  dull  dread  of  the 
lonely  hour  before  bed-time,  to  be  spent  in  his 
green  reps  chair ;  of  the  dim  anthracite  fire,  of  the 
encompassing  silence. 

He  heard  his  great  key  click  in  the  locks  of  the 
outer  door,  and  the  sound  was  peculiarly  depress 
ing.  He  cut  short  a  sigh,  set  his  teeth,  and  smiled 
a  grim  smile  as  he  toiled  up  the  long  stairs  through 
the  dead  darkness.  At  the  top  of  his  own  flight 
a  cold,  faint  half-light  filtered  down  from  the  sky 
light  of  the  little  old-fashioned  dome  that  rose 


THE  MIDGE  157 

above  the  stairway,  built  through  the  story  above. 
By  this  dull  grayness  he  was  able  to  see  two  bun 
dles,  a  small  one,  and  one  comparatively  larger, 
lying  in  front  of  his  door.  As  he  approached,  the 
larger  bundle  stood  up.  The  Doctor  started  in 
surprise. 

"C'est  moi,"  said  the  figure,  which  scarcely 
reached  above  the  handle  of  the  door. 

"What!"  demanded  the  Doctor. 

"C'est  moi,"  the  figure  repeated,  in  a  tone  of 
perfectly  satisfying  explanation;  and  as  she  tried 
to  struggle  out  of  the  folds  of  an  enormous 
water-proof  cloak,  the  Doctor  realized  that  it  was 
Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot. 

* '  C  'est  moi, ' '  she  said. 


^  4T  ¥  THAT  is  the  matter? "  asked  the  Doc- 
^/^/  tor,  falling  back  on  the  stock  question 
which  is  the  Anglo-Saxon 's  refuge  in 
all  cases  of  bewilderment,  mystery  or  surprise. 

" There  is  nothing  is  the  matter,"  returned  the 
girl,  with  composure. 

" What  do  you  want?" 

"I  want  to  enter." 

She  pointed  to  the  door,  her  white  finger  just 
emerging  from  the  folds  of  the  waterproof.  The 
Doctor  unlocked  his  portal;  she  gathered  up  her 
small  bundle  and  walked  in.  He  followed  her, 
leaving  the  door  open.  Within,  the  gas  burned 
low,  and  as  he  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
stooping  to  look  into  her  pale,  small  face,  her 
meagre  proportions  seemed  to  him  more  meagre 
still.  She  looked  up  at  him  with  an  anxious  ques 
tion  in  her  eyes,  and  he  stared  blankly  at  her. 

"Well,"  he  said  at  last,  "I  don't  want  to  seem 
inhospitable  in  any  way,  but  if  you'll  kindly  ex 
plain » 

"I  cannot  stay  with  those  Goubaud,"  she  said, 
with  sudden  agitation. 

"Have  they  been  treating  you  ill?"  The 
Doctor's  gray  eyes  began  to  light  up. 

"No — not  that.     They  do  not  mean  to  be  bad. 

158 


THE  MIDGE  159 

But  they  are  different.  They  are  not — how  you 
say  it  1 — they  are  not  like  we  others.  La  Goubaud, 
she  say  to  me  this  morning:  'Go  out.  Play  with 
the  children.  You  get  not  your  mother  back, 
whether  or  no  you  are  sulky.  Sois  sage.  Play 
with  the  children!'  "  Her  voice  broke  with  an 
angry  sob.  "Me!  Play  with  the  children !" 
There  was  a  woman's  scorn  in  her  voice.  "Play 
my  mother  come  back,  perhaps?  Make  pretence 
she  was  not  dead?  She  treats  me  in  infant.  I 
cannot  bear  it,  monsieur.  You  comprehend?  I 
cannot  bear  it." 

The  Doctor  stood  gazing  at  her  in  puzzled  hope 
lessness. 

"I  run  away  to  you.  I  pack  up  my  things  in 
this  bag.  The  bag  belong  to  la  Goubaud.  I  take 
it  back  to-morrow.  Alphonsine,  she  is  bete,  but 
she  is  good;  she  lend  me  her  waterproof — see? 
so  I  run  away  to  you. ' ' 

She  had  got  clear  of  the  great  garment  by  this 
time,  and  she  shook  it  to  the  floor  and  stood  out, 
thinner  and  smaller  than  ever. 

"But,  my  dear  child,"  the  Doctor  began:  "you 
can't  stay  here,  you  know — " 

"Yes!  let  me  stay  here.  You  will  not  send  me 
away?"  She  clasped  her  hands  together  ner 
vously,  as  she  stood  in  front  of  him,  her  anxious, 
eager  eyes  searching  his  face,  her  mouth  twitch 
ing  painfully.  "You  will  let  me  stay,  monsieur. 
It  is  a  so  short  time!  And  I  shall  die  there" — 
with  a  little  shudder:  "I  tell  you,  I  die  there. 
You  let  me  stay.  I  make  myself  useful.  I  know 


160  THE  MIDGE 

much,  monsieur;  I  cook,  I  keep  the  place  clean, 
I  sew  your  clothes.  I  do  all  that  for  my  parents, 
when  they  have  been  alive.  I  take  care  of  you 
when  you  are  sick.  I  am  good  nurse — very 
good  nurse.  You  are  sick  sometimes,  eh?" 

She  made  the  inquiry  with  painful  eagerness. 
He  smiled  as  he  slowly  shook  his  head;  and  her 
face  fell. 

"I  am  sorry, "  she  said,  simply;  and  then  she 
beamed  with  sudden  hope. 

"I  cook  for  you.  You  do  not  know  how  good 
I  cook.  Alphonsine,  she  tell  me  you  live  all  alone ; 
maybe  you  want  a  cook.  Very  well.  I  be  your 
cook.  Yes,  I  am  small,  I  know ;  but  you  see  I  know 
how  to  cook — I  promise  you.  I  make  you  omelette 
aux  confitures,  same  I  used  to  make  for  my  father. 
You  ever  eat  omelette  aux  confitures?'' 

The  Doctor  pulled  himself  together. 

"Look  here,"  he  said;  "I  want  to  have  a  talk 
with  you." 

"No!"  she  cried,  imperatively,  seized  with  a 
quick  mistrust,  "I  do  not  want  that  you  have  a 
talk  with  me.  You  mean  to  tell  me  to  go  back  to 
laGoubaud,  eh?" 

"No,  I  don't." 

"You  let  me  stay  here — with  you?"  she  began 
again,  coaxingly,  with  wide,  brightening  eyes. 
"Just  a  little  time — to  try?  If  I  am  not  good,  you 
send  me  back. ' ' 

The  Doctor  gave  vent  to  a  husky  exclamation 
that  sounded  like  profanity. 

"Come  here,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  hands. 


THE  MIDGE  161 

'  '  No, ' '  she  insisted :  ' '  you  tell  me  what  you  do ! ' ' 

He  turned  and  shut  the  door,  and  the  child 
promptly  walked  up  to  him  and  placed  two  cold 
hands  in  his.  He  led  her  to  the  armchair,  and 
sat  down  and  made  her  stand  in  front  of  him,  while 
he  inspected  her  with  curious  interest.  Her  eyes 
were  old ;  but  her  face,  in  spite  of  its  thinness  and 
pallor,  had  a  certain  almost  babyish  prettiness 
about  it,  sensitive  and  delicate.  There  was  enough 
of  the  mother's  look  in  it  to  give  promise  of  greater 
beauty.  And  through  all  her  grief  and  anxiety,  he 
could  see  traces  of  an  expression  of  sweet,  win 
some,  childish  wilfulness,  which  suggested  the  in 
nocent  and  instinctive  coquetry  of  a  kitten.  Her 
hair,  thick,  dark,  soft  and  wavy — the  mother's  hair 
— hung  heavily  around  her  face  and  down  her  back, 
and  against  it  he  saw  her  sallow,  thin  neck,  with  its 
tense  cords.  A  scanty  ruffle  of  cheap  lace  hung 
loosely  about  her  throat ;  and  he  noticed  her  nar 
row  chest,  made  yet  narrower  by  the  pleats  of  her 
shabby  black  frock.  He  looked  hard  at  her,  and 
she  looked  hard  at  him,  and  he  saw  that  she  was 
unmistakably  in  earnest. 

"You  shan't  go  back  to  Goubaud's,  I  promise 
you  that,"  he  said  at  last :  "and  you  shan't  go  any 
where  where  you  don't  want  to  go.  But  as  for 
staying  here — well,  I  don't  think  that  can  be  man 
aged.  I'm  a  young  bachelor,  you  see,  and  I'm 
afraid  it  wouldn't  be — proper. " 

She  knit  her  brows. 

"I  did  not  think  of  that.  But  then,  you  are  not 
young.  You  are  not  old,  old — but  you  are  not 


162  THE  MIDGE 

young. ' '  Then,  with  a  sudden  illumination :  ' l  But 
if  I  am  your  cook,  it  is  proper.  A  cook — that  is 
convenable,  monsieur." 

1 '  But  I  have  a  cook.  At  least, ' ' he  corrected 

himself, — ' l  she 's  a  kind  of  a  cook. ' ' 

1 ' She  cooks  bad !    Very  bad ? ' ' 

"I  guess  that's  about  the  size  of  it." 

' '  Well ! ' '  she  solved  the  problem  with  a  definitive 
shrug  of  her  shoulders,  "send  her  away.  Take 
me.  You  do  not  believe  I  can  cook?  I  cook  you 
a  supper — now!" 

"I  haven't  the  slightest  doubt  of  your  powers 
as  a  cook,"  laughed  the  Doctor:  "but  if  I  dis 
charge  Luise,  what  am  I  going  to  do  when  you 
leave  me?  You'll  have  to  go  to  your  uncle  in  a 
few  weeks. ' ' 

She  settled  that  question  with  the  same  prompti 
tude  and  ease. 

'  '  I  don 't  go  to  my  uncle,  then.  I  don 't  care.  It 
is  all  the  same.  I  stay  here  with  you. ' ' 

"But  your  uncle  will  have  something  to  say 
about  that." 

"He  don't  care,  either,  I  guess.  If  he  take  me, 
I  cost  him  money.  He  don't  like  that  people  cost 
him  money.  He  let  me  stay  here  if  you  say  so. ' ' 

1 '  Well, ' '  said  the  Doctor, '  <  we  '11  see  about  it.  I 
don't  doubt  that  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  your  cook 
ing;  but  perhaps  you  won't  like  the  place  your 
self." 

She  shook  her  head  wisely. 

' '  That  is  all  right.    I  like  it.     Then  I  stay  I ' ' 

"You've    got   to    stay   for    to-night,    sure.    I 


THE  MIDGE  163 

shouldn't  know  what  to  do  with  you,  at  this  hour. 
And  now  I  don't  know  where  to  put  you." 

'  '  I  go  in  the  cook 's  room. ' ' 

The  Doctor  laughed  aloud. 

"I  guess  not.  There's  no  bed  there,  and  it's 
colder  than  seventeen  north  poles  stood  on  end. 
You'd  freeze  to  death  there;  and  you're  cold 
enough  already.  Here,  sit  down  here  and  warm 
yourself  while  I  see  where  to  stow  you." 

He  got  up  and  slipped  the  child  into  his  place. 
Then  he  stirred  the  fire  into  life,  and  put  her  feet 
on  the  fender,  first  taking  off  her  shoes,  which  were 
worn  to  such  an  extent  that  they  were  both  pic 
turesque  and  pathetic. 

"Now  you  stay  there  and  warm  yourself,  and 
I'll  see  about  quarters.  Great  Scott !"  he  said,  as 
he  held  up  the  shoes,  "if  you're  going  to  be  my 
cook  you've  got  to  get  a  new  pair  of  those  things, 
for  the  credit  of  the  establishment." 

If  he  had  not  been  bending  down  when  he  re 
moved  her  shoes,  he  would  have  seen  that  she  col 
ored  painfully.  He  saw  the  color  deepening  now, 
and  he  wished  he  had  not  spoken.  "Well,"  he 
went  on,  rather  awkwardly,  "I  don't  suppose  you 
could  have  known  that  I  made  it  a  point  to  be  par 
ticular  about  my  cook's  shoes — just  a  sort  of  a  way 
I  have.  Now,  let's  see.  I  guess  I  can  make  you 
comfortable  for  the  night,  somehow  or  other.  This 
is  your  traveling-bag?"  he  asked,  lifting  the  blue 
ticking  sack  that  she  had  brought  with  her.  ' i  Well, 
when  I  was  down  South,  the  boys  called  me  '  Po 
tato-bag  Peters,'  one  time,  because  I  had  to  tote 


164  THE  MIDGE 

my  traps  around  in  an  old  potato-sack.  Just  as 
good,  you  know,  as  a  fancy  satchel,  and  holds  a 
lot  more.  Have  you  got  your  what-you-may-call- 
'em  inhere?" 

"M !" 

"Your — ah — your  night  things,  whatever  they 
are,"  he  explained,  hastily  and  uncomfortably. 

The  red  on  the  child's  face  mounted  to  the  roots 
of  her  hair. 

"N — n "  she  began,  and  then  finished  reso 
lutely—  "  Yes !" 

He  felt  himself  rebuked,  and  he  grew  nearly  as 
red  as  the  forlorn,  poverty-stricken  waif  in  his 
easy  chair.  It  was  ridiculous  for  a  veteran  of  the 
Doctor's  age  to  flush  up  like  a  school-girl;  but  he 
did  it  now  and  then,  and  was  always  ashamed  of  it. 

He  moved  about  in  silence  for  a  minute  or  two, 
looking  for  extra  bed-clothes  to  put  on  the  big 
horse-hair  sofa  in  the  corner — the  one  relic  of  the 
Oneida  homestead  which  he  possessed.  From  the 
depths  of  a  dark  closet  his  guest  heard  him,  after 
a  while,  calling  down  the  vengeance  of  heaven  upon 
the  head  of  Luise ;  but  in  the  end  he  found  the  mis 
laid  drapery,  and  emerged  with  his  burden.  The 
child  leaped  to  her  feet,  and,  after  one  rueful 
glance  at  the  two  pink  toes  that  peeped  from  Jier 
black  stockings,  pattered  across  the  floor  to  him, 
and  took  the  bed-clothes  in  charge  as  he  dropped 
them  on  the  floor. 

"It  is  for  me,"  she  said,  with  feminine  superi 
ority:  "you  do  not  know  how." 

He  had  to   stand   aside,   even  his   assistance 


THE  MIDGE  165 

scorned,  as  she  rapidly  and  neatly  made  up  a  bed 
on  the  sofa.  Her  easy  adaptation  of  the  means  to 
the  end  gave  the  impression  of  a  thorough  ac 
quaintance  with  the  exigencies  of  poverty  in  the 
matter  of  "shake-downs." 

It  was  all  done  before  the  Doctor  could  have  got 
one  sheet  stretched  evenly,  and  then  she  gave  the 
completed  work  the  two  little  pats  and  the  smooth 
ing  stroke  with  which  the  true  woman  always  pol 
ishes  off  her  bed-making.  She  turned  to  the 
Doctor,  and  he  nodded  approbation. 

"Now,  young  woman,"  he  inquired,  beginning 
to  feel  a  certain  familiarity  with  his  new  acquaint 
ance,  i '  do  you  suppose  you  could  eat  some  crack 
ers  and  cheese  before  you  turn  in?" 

Again  a  hint  of  painful  color  crept  into  her  wan 
face ;  but  this  time  she  looked  him  in  the  eye,  and 
said  that  she  could  eat  some  crackers  and  cheese. 

She  did  eat  some  crackers  and  cheese — a  great 
many  crackers  and  a  great  deal  of  cheese,  in  a  way 
that  showed  that  she  was  hungry.  The  Doctor 
went  up  stairs  in  the  dark,  and  found  some  milk 
in  the  ice-box — Luise  had  never  been  able  to  see 
any  good  reason  why  milk  should  be  fresh,  when 
freshness  involved  going  out  in  the  early  morning 
and  getting  a  new  supply — and  he  brought  it  down, 
and  his  guest  made  quite  a  fair  supper,  sitting 
perched  up  in  the  big  green  reps  chair,  with  her 
feet  to  the  fire,  the  bare  toes  that  protruded  from 
the  black  stockings  occasionally  drawing  them 
selves  up  in  modest  consciousness  of  their  uncon 
ventional  nudity. 


166  THE  MIDGE 

But  in  the  middle  of  it  all  she  broke  down,  and 
choked  on  a  drink  of  milk,  and  burst  into  a  passion 
of  tears,  crying:  "0  ma  mere,  ma  mere — 0  ma 
pauvre  petite  mere!"  The  Doctor  went  to  her 
side,  and  she  threw  her  arms  about  him,  but  in 
stantly  pushed  him  away,  and  fumbled  for  her 
pocket,  and  found  a  poor  little  ball  of  a  handker 
chief,  with  which  she  mopped  up  her  tears.  Her 
breast  heaved  still,  and  her  breath  was  tremulous ; 
but  she  tried  to  take  up  her  talk  where  she  had  left 
it.  She  had  been  telling  him  about  her  abilities  as 
a  cook,  and  she  endeavored  to  go  on  and  enlighten 
him  about  a  certain  Francois  in  a  hotel  at  Biarritz, 
who  had  taught  her  to  make  a  marvelous  tisane 
for  the  sick.  She  had  lost  the  thread  of  her  nar 
rative,  however,  and  the  Doctor  felt  it  incumbent 
upon  him  to  keep  up  his  end  of  the  conversation. 

So  he  told  her  about  some  amateur  cooking  he 
had  done  in  war-times — he  was  not  in  the  habit  of 
talking  of  war-times ;  but  he  was  short  of  a  subject 
— and  he  dilated  on  his  enjoyment  of  a  certain 
sandwich  or  stratified  structure  of  crackers,  pork, 
molasses  and  smoked  beef,  until  her  feminine  hor 
ror  at  the  unholy  fare  filled  her  young  mind  to  the 
exclusion  of  deeper  emotions. 

Then  he  suggested  that  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed, 
and  he  made  a  move  to  carry  her  bag  into  his  room. 
But  she  would  not  hear  of  the  arrangement.  Her 
protest  was  vehement,  decided,  and  in  the  end  it 
was  successful.  She  would  sleep  on  the  sofa,  and 
the  Doctor  should  sleep  in  his  own  bed.  And  when 
the  argument  closed,  the  Doctor  felt  himself  dis- 


THE  MIDGE  167 

missed  from  the  room.  She  did  not  express  her 
self  in  words ;  but  there  was  in  her  manner  a  dis 
tinct  feminine  intimation  that  his  further  lingering 
would  be  in  bad  taste.  Conquered  and  embar 
rassed,  he  retreated. 

But  a  couple  of  hours  later  he  got  up,  slipped 
into  his  old  red-flannel  dressing-gown,  and  stole 
into  the  sitting-room  to  see  if  his  charge  was 
asleep.  He  only  went  near  enough  to  the  couch 
to  hear  her  regular,  soft  breathing,  and  then  he  tip 
toed  back,  turning  hurriedly  into  his  own  room,  as 
though  he  felt  that  his  presence  profaned  the  in 
nocent  maiden  slumber  that  was  a  strange  new 
thing  under  his  roof. 


He  woke  the  next  morning  with  a  glad,  foolishly 
expectant  feeling  which  he  could  not  have  ex 
plained  to  himself.  He  remembered,  though,  a 
similar  sensation  when  the  winter  dawn  looked  into 
his  narrow  attic  room,  in  the  days  of  his  boyhood, 
and  reminded  him  that  singing- school  was  to  be 
held  that  night,  and  that  he  should  probably  see 
Alida  Jansen  home. 

Ten  minutes  later,  as  he  was  taking  his  morning 
dip  in  the  bath-room  at  the  rear  of  the  hall,  he 
heard  a  sound  of  violent  contention  coming  from 
the  regions  above.  He  paused  knee-deep  in  the 
water  and  listened.  One  voice  was  unquestionably 
that  of  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot.  The 
other  was  what  the  voice  of  Luise  might  be  raised 
to  the  nth  of  dissonance  by  extreme  rage.  He  had 


168  THE  MIDGE 

stepped  softly  past  the  closed  door  of  his  sitting- 
room,  as  he  went  to  his  bath,  for  fear  of  waking 
the  sleeping  child ;  but  it  seemed  that  the  child  was 
not  sleeping.  He  huddled  on  some  clothes  and 
hurried  up  stairs,  appearing  in  the  kitchen  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  to  act  as  mediator  in  a  combat  that 
was  growing  fiercer  each  moment. 

The  small  usurper  was  in  position  of  vantage, 
her  back  to  the  range,  her  feet  wide  apart,  planted 
firmly  on  the  hearthstone,  her  left  hand  grasping 
a  frying-pan,  while  her  right  gesticulated  freely. 
She  was  talking  with  a  fiery  volubility  and  a  com 
mand  of  language — such  language  as  it  was — that 
for  the  moment  had  silenced  old  Luise. 

" Imbecile  of  a  German — bete!  idiot!  va!  If  I 
knew  to  use  your  language  for  the  beasts,  I  would 
tell  you  what  you  are.  Go,  I  tell  you!  Nobody 
want  you  here.  You  are  dis-s-s-charged !  You 
have  no  ears  then,  you  insane,  that  you  stand  there 
and  mock  yourself  of  me  I  Go,  then !  get  yourself 
out,  or  I  forget  myself — j  'te  dirai  des  injures,  you 

hear  me !  You  are  no  more  cook — I  am  cook ' ' 

here  she  caught  sight  of  the  Doctor.  "Tell  her 
she  is  no  more  cook.  She  will  not  go.  Tell 
her  she  shall  go.  Tell  her  in  her  ac-cur-sed 
tongue  I" 

"Ah!"  gasped  the  Doctor,  himself  appalled  by 
this  vigor  of  utterance,  and  too  much  taken  aback 
to  remember  that  maudite  gains  strength  when 
translated  by  "accursed." 

"Am  I  not  your  cook,  eh?  You  engage  me  last 
night,  eh!  Then  tell  her  that  she  shall  go.  Im- 


THE  MIDGE  169 

becile" — this  triumphantly  to  Luise — "tu  vas 
voir." 

The  light  of  a  great  and  beautiful  possibility 
broke  upon  the  Doctor's  mind.  Here  was  his 
chance,  his  heaven-sent  chance,  of  getting  rid  of 
Luise  forever.  It  would  be  flying  in  the  face  of 
Providence  to  neglect  it.  He  chastened  a  broad 
grin  to  a  pleasantly  humorous  smile,  and  said 
placidly : 

"Yes,  that's  so.  Sorry  for  this  little  misunder 
standing;  but  it's  a  fact,  Luise.  This  young  lady 
— I  mean,  this  is  my  new  cook.  I  ought  to  have 
told  you  before  that  I  was  thinking  of  changing; 
but  she  arrived,  rather  unexpectedly,  and " 

"Dot  ehi-yilt!"  Luise  shrieked. 

"That  young  woman,  yes.  Of  course,  I  ought 
to  have  given  you  a  month's  warning;  but  I  guess 
we  can  make  it  even  with  a  month's  cash — how '11 
that  do  I  Sorry  to  lose  you,  Luise ;  but  the  fact  is, 
I've  come  to  the  conclusion  that  I  like  younger 
cooking — see?  Suppose  you  call  on  me  to-night, 
and  I'll  settle  accounts  with  you!  We'll  make  it 
all  satisfactory,  somehow,  Luise,"  he  finished,  feel 
ing  his  heart  begin  to  fail  him. 

The  successful  combatant  in  front  of  the  fire 
gave  her  frying-pan  an  airy  twirl  of  victory,  and 
set  it  down  on  the  stove  with  a  slam.  "N-i, 
ni,"  she  said:  "c'est  fini!"  and  she  folded  her 
hands  on  her  apron,  waiting  for  her  rival  to 
depart. 

Luise  stood  one  stricken  moment  speechless,  and 
then  she  turned  and  cluttered  to  the  door.  As  she 


170  THE  MIDGE 

grasped  the  post  and  swung  herself  out,  she  turned 
to  level  a  threatening  finger  at  the  Doctor. 

"I  kess  you  goin'  crazy!"  she  hissed,  and  she 
disappeared. 

Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot  gazed  at  the 
Doctor,  the  flush  of  indignation  fading  from  her 
cheeks.  She  bobbed  her  small, head  significantly 
and  closed  one  eye  in  the  wink  of  fellowship. 

' '  Good, ' '  she  said :  *  *  no  more  Luise ! ' ' 

'  *  But  how  about  my  breakfast  f ' '  demanded  the 
Doctor. 

"Your  breakfast,"  she  replied,  looking  at  the 
clock:  "it  will  be  ready  in  fifteen  minutes — if  you 
go  down  stairs,"  she  added  severely.  "You  go 
down  stairs,  you  put  on  your  coat,  you  read  your 
journal — you  brush  your  hair,  perhaps" — with  a 
quick  glance  at  the  top  of  his  head — "and  I  come 
with  breakfast  before  you  are  ready." 

He  departed  submissively  and  finished  his 
dressing.  The  fifteen  minutes  had  spread  out  to 
twenty,  and  he  was  just  taking  down  his  pipe  to 
stay  his  stomach  with  nicotine,  when  he  heard  a 
fumbling  at  the  door-knob.  He  put  the  pipe  away 
guiltily,  and  opened  to  his  new  cook,  who  was 
nearly  hidden  behind  the  loaded  breakfast-tray. 

She  permitted  him  to  set  it  on  the  floor,  and  then 
she  made  him  stand  aside  while  she  set  the  table. 
When  the  board  was  spread,  he  gravely  invited  her 
to  a  seat,  and,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  in 
which  she  glanced  with  hungry  eyes  at  the  works 
of  her  hands,  she  graciously  accepted,  and,  climb 
ing  into  a  chair  opposite  her  host,  she  named  over 


THE  MIDGE  171 

the  edibles,  not  as  Luise  had  of  old;  but  with  the 
gusto  of  an  artist. 

She  had  not  boasted  vainly.  There  was  an 
omelette,  golden,  light  and  tender;  there  were  a 
few  bits  of  crisp  bacon;  there  was  a  bunch  of 
radishes  coyly  tucked  in  a  napkin  folded  to  simu 
late  a  rose ;  there  was  a  little  pile  of  anchovy  toast, 
and  there  was  a  pot  of  coffee,  clear  and  strong, 
such  as  the  Doctor  had  not  tasted  in  many  a  morn 
ing. 

"I  kept  you  waiting  a  little,"  she  said  apolo 
getically  ; '  *  and  it  is  not  all  as  I  would  like ;  but  it  is 
not  my  fault.  That  Luise,  she  is — how  you  say? — 
untidy.  She  puts  the  things  allwheres  and 
nowheres. ' ' 

The  Doctor  assured  her  that  he  was  perfectly 
satisfied,  and  he  proved  it  by  his  attention  to  the 
repast.  But  as  he  ate,  it  slowly  dawned  on  his 
man's  mind  that  the  delicacies  before  him  were 
not  usually  among  the  provisions  of  the  unin- 
ventive  Luise. 

" Where  did  you  get  these — these  extras?"  he 
inquired,  indicating  them  with  a  comprehensive 
sweep  of  his  hand. 

"I  got  up  and  went  out  and  got  them  before 
you  were  awake,"  she  answered,  proudly:  "I  got 
them  at  Breitenbach,  the  grocery  around  the 
corner." 

"But  I  haven't  an  account  there!"  he  said,  in 
dismay. 

"No,  I  know.  But  I  did  not  know  what  was 
your  place,  and  they  knew  you  there.  They  would 


172  THE  MIDGE 

not  believe  me  that  I  came  from  you,  and  they 
would  send  a  German  boy  with  me  back,  but  when 
he  came  here,  he  has  seen  that  it  was  all  right,  and 
he  has  left  the  things.  You  can  pay,  can  you  not? 
he  will  give  credit." 

The  Doctor  suppressed  his  comments  on  this 
revelation.  "And  that?"  he  further  inquired, 
pointing  to  the  butter-dish.  It  was  ingeniously 
swaddled  in  a  napkin,  and  from  one  corner  of  the 
napkin  peeped  a  large  carnation-pink.  She 
blushed  a  little,  and  smiled  knowingly.  "Oh, 
that,"  she  said;  "I  got  that  from  the  boy.  He 
had  it  in  his  buttonhole;  so  I  was  very  nice  with 
him,  and  I  asked  him  for  it,  and  he  has  given  it  to 
me.  One  flower,  even,"  she  explained,  "it  is  so 
good  on  the  table.  It  gives  the  appetite." 


VI 

f  f  T  THINK,"  said  the  Doctor,  an  hour  later, 
when  he  had  read  his  paper  and  meditated 
over  his  pipe,  while  his  new  aid  washed  the 
breakfast-things,  and  made  his  bed  and  dusted  the 
rooms,  "I  rather  think  that  I'll  do  the  marketing 
while  you  're  in  charge  of  the  establishment.  You 
can  tell  me  what  you  want,  and  I'll  get  it.  It's 
more  in  my  line  anyway,  and  it  strikes  me  that — 
that  I'm  a  little  more  up  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
situation." 

This  last  phrase  evidently  exerted  on  his  hear 
er's  mind  the  influence  of  the  mysterious  and 
incomprehensible.  She  gave  it  deliberate  con 
sideration,  and  finally  felt  herself  safe  in  assent 
ing.  Perhaps,  she  admitted,  it  would  be  better. 

They  proceeded  to  lay  out  a  dinner,  which  im 
pressed  the  Doctor  as  being  of  dangerously  large 
proportions.  It  began  with  bouillon,  went  on  with 
fried  smelts,  rose  to  the  height  of  a  cutlet,  and 
passed  to  coffee  and  cheese,  through  an  omelette 
souffle.  The  plan  also  involved  the  introduction 
of  various  vegetables. 

It  was  arranged  that  the  Doctor  was  not  to  be 
home  to  luncheon,  whereat  the  new  cook  was 
pleased.  She  acknowledged  that  if  there  was  one 
weak  spot  in  her  culinary  education,  it  was  in  the 

173 


174  THE  MIDGE 

matter  of  luncheon.  She  kindly  explained  that 
the  French  system  of  late  breakfasting  rendered 
luncheon  unnecessary,  and  she  seemed  disposed  to 
dwell  on  the  superiority  of  that  plan  until  she 
found  her  American  friend  hopelessly  unre 
sponsive. 

His  list  having  been  made  out,  the  Doctor  took 
M.  Goubaud's  sack  and  Alphonsine's  waterproof, 
and  set  out.  He  stopped  at  Breitenbach's  to  settle 
his  bill  and  dash  the  hopes  of  Breitenbach,  who 
would  have  been  more  than  glad  to  write  Dr. 
Peters 's  name  on  his  books.  He  saw  Mme.  Gou- 
baud,  who  grumbled  sourly  at  the  flight  of  her 
boarder,  even  after  the  Doctor  had  paid  the  price 
of  three  weeks'  board  for  Miss  Talbot,  out  of  his 
own  pocket.  He  also  found  means  of  surrep 
titiously  returning  her  cloak  to  Alphonsine,  with  a 
little  cash  compensation  for  her  kindness  to  the 
child.  And,  when  all  this  was  done,  he  went  off  to 
see  his  friend  at  the  rooms  of  the  Benevolent 
Society. 

The  little  secretary  took  a  gloomy  view  of  the 
young  lady's  contumacy.  He  did  not  see  how  the 
Society  could  countenance  such  independent  action 
on  the  part  of  one  of  its  wards.  It  was  irregular 
and  improper,  and  he  thoroughly  disapproved 
of  it. 

"We've  got  to  do  something  with  her,  all  the 
same,  Peloubet,"  said  the  Doctor.  "She  can't 
stay  with  me,  and  she  won't  stay  at  Goubaud's,  and 
she  oughtn't  to." 

"Wy  can  she  not  stay  wiz  you?"  inquired 


THE  MIDGE  175 

Peloubet,  in  extravagant  protest:  "you  'ave  a 
grand  apar-r-rtment — you  a-r-r  so  reech  you  don' 
know  w'at  to  do  wiz  your  monnee — w'y  can  she  not 
stay  wiz  you ! ' ' 

"Great  Scott,  Peloubet — I  can't  have  a  child 
in  my  place,  there — especially  a  child  of  that 
peculiar  sex." 

"Bah!  It  is  but  two — free  wicks.  She  is  your 
niece ;  she  is  come  to  mek  you  a  visit.  You  ar-r-r 
old  enough  to  be  an  uncle,  eh! " 

"I'm  old  enough  to  be  most  anything,  I  sup 
pose,"  returned  the  Doctor^  with  a  rather  grim 
smile;  "but  I'm  not  the  uncle  of  the  whole  Benevo 
lent  Society.  There's  no  two  ways  about  it.  I  got 
you  into  this  scrape,  and  I'll  take  whatever  trouble 
there  is  to  be  taken;  but  I've  got  to  find  some 
decent  woman  to  look  after  the  child,  and  it  must 
be  done  with  the  sanction  of  the  Society.  It's  all 
the  same  to  you  to  whom  you  pay  her  board.  It 
must  be  done,  and  it'll  have  to  be  done  right  off. 
If  that  infant  settles  herself  down  in  my  quarters 
much  more  firmly,  I  shan't  be  able  to  get  her  out 
with  an  ox-chain. ' ' 

"Bot  she  mos'  go  w'ere  we  send  her,"  said  the 
Secretary. 

"But  she  won't,  if  she  don't  feel  like  it." 

"You  mos'  mek  her  go." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  should  want  to  make 
her  go,  if  she  stayed  any  longer,"  said  the  Doctor, 
half  to  himself.  Then  he  got  up  to  depart. 

"All  right,  Peloubet,  I'll  hunt  around  and  find 
a  place  for  her,  and  then  I'll  report  to  you,  and  if 


176  THE  MIDGE 

it's  satisfactory,  we'll  transfer  the  young  woman 
after  dinner.  I  expect  she  '11  break  her  heart  if  she 
isn't  allowed  to  cook  that  dinner."  He  had  told 
the  Secretary  of  the  child's  fancy  that  she  could  be 
the  cook  in  his  bachelor  establishment. 

Dr.  Peters  spent  the  rest  of  the  daylight  in  a 
twofold  search — looking  for  a  temporary  home  for 
his  charge,  and  also  for  a  cook  for  himself.  Mme. 
Pigault  finally  helped  him  out  of  both  of  his  diffi 
culties.  Her  sister,  in  Harlem,  would  take  the 
child  to  board — her  sister  was  a  milliner,  and  the 
place  would  be  better  for  the  little  one  than  here 
where  there  were  so  many  men  forever  coming  and 
going — nice,  respectable  men  they  were ;  but,  enfin, 
men.  And  she  knew  of  a  cook,  did  Mme.  Pigault,  a 
certain  filise,  a  French  Alsatian,  who  was  all 
there  was  of  most  perfect  in  the  way  of  a  cook. 

These  things  being  off  his  mind,  the  Doctor  went 
home.  Lodoiska  Agnes  looked  down  on  him  from 
the  top  of  the  kitchen  stairway,  and  told  him  that 
dinner  would  be  ready  at  six,  and  that  she  had 
caught  a  mouse  in  the  trap,  and  had  let  him  go 
again.  It  was  only  five,  so  he  took  off  his  coat 
and  went  to  filing  away  in  his  work-room,  where  a 
little  light  still  lingered.  It  was  the  large  back 
room,  looking  out  on  two  vacant  lots,  that 
stretched  through  to  Third  Street.  In  the  summer 
time  there  was  no  pleasanter  room  in  all  that  quar 
ter;  for  the  yards  were  green  and  bright,  and  a 
beautiful  tree  stood  in  one  of  them,  spreading  and 
flourishing  as  fairly  as  if  it  had  been  miles  out  in 
the  country,  and  serving  as  a  screen  between  the 


THE  MIDGE  177 

house  and  the  noise  and  ugliness  of  the  newly-built 
elevated  railroad.  But  the  room  itself  was  bare 
and  unfurnished,  save  for  the  work-bench  and 
racks  that  held  the  odds  and  ends  of  models  and 
castings.  And  the  outlook  to-day  was  not  over- 
cheerful,  for  the  tree  was  stripped  of  its  leaves, 
and  the  trains  went  crashing  by,  their  lighted  win 
dows  glaring  in  the  twilight. 

He  had  lit  the  gas,  and  was  still  filing  away  and 
whistling  to  himself,  when  his  cook  came  in.  She 
had  been  setting  the  table  in  the  sitting-room,  and 
she  paid  him  a  brief  visit  to  tell  him  that  it  was 
time  to  get  ready  for  his  dinner. 

She  inquired  into  the  nature  of  his  labors,  perch 
ing  herself  on  the  largest  casting  that  stood 
against  the  wall.  He  told  her  what  he  was  doing ; 
and  she  instantly  got  off  the  casting,  and  expressed 
her  disapprobation. 

Why  did  he  wish  to  make  a  cannon,  to  kill  peo 
ple?  It  was  cruel;  it  was  not  gentil.  She  would 
not  like  that.  She  did  not  like  it. 

Dr.  Peters  explained  that  cannons  were  useful  in 
time  of  war,  when  one's  country  was  attacked; 
but  she  was  not  satisfied.  Yes,  she  knew  all 
about  that.  The  Prussians,  who,  she  incidentally 
remarked,  were  hogs,  had  attacked  France.  She 
did  not  remember  it ;  it  was  many  years  ago,  and 
she  was  very  little  then;  but  she  had  been  told 
about  it,  and  she  had  seen  the  mischief  they  had 
done.  But  herself,  she  thought  that  the  French 
were  as  bad  as  the  Prussians.  They  had  cannons, 
too,  and  they  had  used  them,  although  they  must 


178  THE  MIDGE 

have  known  that  it  would  set  fire  to  their  houses 
and  knock  down  the  trees  and  ruin  everything. 
She  did  not  like  cannons  at  all.  She  had  seen  them 
fired,  not  to  kill  people,  of  course ;  but  just  to  pass 
the  time.  The  smoke  and  the  flame  were  very 
pretty ;  but  the  noise  was  not  good.  If  they  could 
have  the  smoke  and  the  flame  without  the  noise — 
well !  But  for  killing  people — it  had  not  the  com 
mon  sense.  Why  could  he  not  make  something 
else! 

What  should  he  make!  the  Doctor  asked  her. 
He  was  ready  to  invent  anything  she  desired ;  he 
didn't  care  particularly  about  cannons.  What 
should  it  be?  She  pondered  awhile,  and  then  sug 
gested  " something  to  eat." 

This  recalling  her  to  her  duties,  she  took  herself 
off  upstairs ;  and  the  Doctor  made  his  simple  toilet 
in  preparation  for  dinner.  He  saw,  when  he 
entered  the  sitting-room,  that  places  were  set  for 
two,  from  which  he  concluded  that  his  new  domes 
tic  was  either  enough  of  a  democrat,  or  enough  of 
an  aristocrat,  to  see  no  impropriety  in  dining  with 
her  employer. 

She  came  down,  presently,  bearing  the  soup- 
tureen,  which  she  placed  in  front  of  the  head  of  the 
house.  She  swung  herself  into  her  chair  opposite 
him,  and  began  a  voluble  discourse  on  the  demerits 
of  the  departed  Luise,  as  shown  in  the  deplorable 
condition  of  the  kitchen  and  pantry.  The  Doctor 
ladled  out  the  bouillon,  gave  the  culinary  artist  her 
plate,  and  then  stared  hard  at  his  own,  as  he  filled 
it.  He  took  a  spoonful  and  elevated  it  for  closer 


THE  MIDGE  179 

examination.  It  was  of  a  fine  straw-color,  and  the 
pattern  on  the  bottom  of  the  plate  shone  through  in 
undimmed  blueness.  To  the  taste  the  broth  sug 
gested  faintly  the  flavor  of  beef -tea;  but  it  gave  no 
hint  of  sustenance. 

The  monologue  on  the  sins  of  Luise  went  on 
across  the  table ;  but  it  was  less  fluent,  and  there 
were  awkward,  conscious  breaks  in  it.  The  face 
bent  over  the  hot,  thin  decoction  changed  from  red 
to  white  and  back  to  red  again.  The  Doctor  said 
nothing;  being  painfully  at  a  loss.  Finally  the 
small  face  was  raised,  and  she  addressed  him  with 
a  brave  assumption  of  ease,  while  a  tear  glistened 
in  each  eye. 

"This  bouillon  is  not  good,  I  don't  think.  You 
find  it  thin,  do  you  not?" 

"Well,"  hazarded  the  Doctor,  "it's  a  little  that 
way,  seems  to  me. ' ' 

'  *  Never  mind.  We  will  not  eat  it.  I  will  take  it 
away.  The  next  time  I  will  make  it  more  strong. ' ' 

She  slipped  to  the  ground,  and,  taking  the  plate 
from  him,  gathered  up  her  own  and  the  soup- 
tureen,  and  hurried  from  the  room  with  them, 
clearly  desirous  of  getting  them  out  of  sight  as 
soon  as  possible.  When  she  returned  she  brought 
the  smelts.  There  was  a  perceptible  decrease  of 
confidence  in  her  manner ;  but  she  became  herself 
again  when  it  proved  that  the  smelts  were  good 
beyond  cavil.  They  were  well  fried ;  they  lay  in  a 
clean  napkin,  and  there  was  a  sprig  of  parsley  so 
ingeniously  tucked  into  each  gaping  mouth  that  it 
looked  like  a  tiny  green  nosegay,  of  which,  and 


180  THE  MIDGE 

himself  to  boot,  the  smelt  was  making  general 
tender. 

The  smelts  having  established  their  claim  to 
respect,  it  was  with  unconcealed  pride  that  the 
cook  marched  upstairs  to  get  the  veal  cutlet.  The 
maintenance  of  her  social  as  well  as  her  domestic 
functions  caused  long  waits  between  the  courses, 
but  although  it  was  ten  minutes  before  her  reap 
pearance,  both  she  and  the  Doctor  felt  that  the 
success  of  the  smelts  justified  her  in  expecting  the 
indulgence  to  be  accorded  to  an  artist. 

The  cutlet  was  brown  and  pleasing  to  the  eye. 
A  paper  rose  grew  from  the  island  of  bone  in  the 
middle.  Lodoiska  Agnes  called  her  host's  atten 
tion  to  it,  and  described  the  process  of  making 
paper  roses.  Then  the  Doctor,  his  eyes  politely 
fixed  on  the  person  speaking  to  him,  cut  into  the 
cutlet.  There  was  a  courteous  smile  of  divided 
interest  on  his  face,  but  it  vanished  as  an  agonized 
contortion  swept  over  the  child's  features,  and  a 
cry  of  pain  and  horror  came  from  her  quivering 
lips.  He  glanced  down  where  she  was  looking,  at 
his  knife  and  fork.  He  thought  that  he  must  have 
been  guilty  of  some  hideous  slip,  and  he  half- 
expected  to  see  a  severed  finger  lying  in  the  plat 
ter.  But  even  as  he  looked,  the  girl,  with  a  bitter 
cry  of  shame  and  grief,  spread  out  her  little  hands, 
trying  to  hide  the  dish  from  his  sight.  l '  No,  no ! " 
she  wailed:  "you  shall  not  see  it!  I  will  not  that 
you  shall  see  it ! ' ' 

He  could  not  help  himself;  a  smile  came  on  his 
face.  The  incision  had  disclosed  the  inner  depths 


THE  MIDGE  181 

of  the  cutlet.  The  bread-crumb  crust  was 
browned;  but  below  was  only  the  hideous,  livid, 
raw  pink  of  uncooked  meat. 

There  was  nothing  but  child  left  in  her  now.  In 
her  utter  humiliation  and  despair,  she  let  him  take 
her  up  in  his  arms  and  kiss  and  console  and  caress 
her  after  a  fatherly  fashion.  She  hid  her  face  on 
his  shoulder,  hanging  to  him  by  the  lapels  of  his 
coat,  and  she  sobbed  and  moaned,  and  brokenly 
bewailed  her  failure,  and  then  cried  aloud  for  her 
father  and  mother. 

He  let  her  have  it  out,  and  when  the  spasmodic 
violence  of  her  distress  had  abated,  he  made  her 
sit  on  his  knee  and  listen  to  the  assurances  that  it 
was  all  right;  that  they  could  make  a  very  good 
dinner  without  the  cutlet;  that  he  didn't  mind  it 
in  the  least,  if  she  didn't.  He  pressed  his  lips  to 
her  hot  cheeks,  where  the  salt  tears  trickled  down 
even  while  a  faint,  dim  gleam  of  hope  once  more 
began  to  dawn  in  her  eyes.  He  smoothed  her  hair, 
and  she  dried  her  tears  with  his  faded  silk  hand 
kerchief,  and  after  a  bit  they  organized  a  joint 
expedition  to  the  kitchen,  where  the  cutlet  was 
stowed  away  under  the  sink,  and  where  they  made 
coffee,  with  which  and  the  crackers  and  cheese, 
they  descended  to  the  dining-room.  The  omelette 
souffle  was  postponed  to  another  occasion;  and 
they  got  on  very  well  without  it,  and  were  sur 
prised  to  find  how  far  crackers  and  cheese  could  go 
as  a  substitute  for  a  dinner. 

When  it  was  all  finished,  and  the  table  was 
cleared  off,  she  came  readily  to  sit  on  his  lap  as  he 


182  THE  MIDGE 

smoked  his  pipe.  Here  she  fell  into  a  brown  study, 
and,  after  a  couple  of  minutes  of  silence,  she  sud 
denly  turned  to  him,  put  her  arms  about  his  neck, 
and  kissed  him.  It  was  an  offering  so  deliberate, 
frank  and  sweetly  declarative  of  affection  that  the 
Doctor  blushed.  She  was  chary  of  her  kisses,  he 
afterwards  found  out;  but  when  she  gave  them, 
she  meant  them. 

But  she  was  quite  willing  now  to  be  kissed,  and 
she  accepted  and  even  invited  petting  with  the 
most  childlike  simplicity.  Like  the  Widow 
Malone,  she  seemed  to  feel  that  submission  to  an 
initial  aggression  involved  and  demanded  full  sur 
render.  Her  mature  reserve  had  vanished  with 
the  downfall  of  her  dignity ;  and  she  put  her  head 
in  the  hollow  of  his  shoulder  and  nestled  up  to  him 
as  though  she  were  six  instead  of  twelve. 

All  the  time  she  chattered,  telling  him,  in  a 
rambling,  desultory  way,  the  story  of  her  life. 
And  a  queer  story  of  genteel  tramphood  it  was, 
full  of  details  of  curious  shifts  of  poverty,  accounts 
of  strange  lodgings  and  stranger  companionships, 
tales  of  friendly  cooks  and  waiters  and  odd  vaga 
bonds  of  the  father's  profession,  and  tales  of 
unfriendly  landlords  and  hard-hearted  purveyors 
of  provisions. 

Incoherent  as  was  her  recital — and  she  stopped 
often  to  cry  quietly  over  her  lost  father  and 
mother — it  was  deeply  interesting  to  the  Doctor. 
It  gave  him  pictures  of  a  life  of  which  he  knew 
little,  it  made  comprehensible  to  him  the  odd  men 
tal  and  moral  development  of  this  little  being  who 


THE  MIDGE  183 

could  not  fairly  be  classed  either  with  children  or 
with  women. 

The  clock  struck  nine — his  usual  hour  for  going 
to  Pigault  's ;  but  he  thought  he  would  wait  awhile 
to-night,  until  it  should  be  time  for  the  child  to  go 
to  bed.  Ten  o'clock  came,  and  the  little  one  was 
still  lying  in  his  arms,  with  her  head  on  his 
shoulder,  and  they  were  talking  like  old  friends. 
For  the  time  being,  her  reminiscences  had  come  to 
an  end,  and  she  was  catechizing  him.  She  wanted 
to  know  where  Jie  had  been,  and  what  he  had  done, 
and  he  tried  to  tell  her,  with  all  the  awkwardness 
of  a  man  who  has  made  it  his  rule  in  life  not  to 
talk  about  himself.  He  told  her  of  the  old  home 
stead  in  the  north  of  the  state,  of  his  stern,  precise, 
formal  father,  Doctor  Peters,  the  great  man  of 
their  little  town;  of  his  mother,  what  little  he 
remembered  of  her;  of  his  simple,  uneventful, 
meagre  boyhood ;  of  his  brief  career  as  a  student  of 
medicine,  and  then  he  came  to  the  War. 

Volunteer  though  he  had  been,  he  was  a  thor 
ough-going  old  soldier  in  certain  things ;  and  it  was 
not  easy  for  him  to  begin  to  talk  about  the  War. 
But  when  he  did  begin,  he  forgot  himself,  and  now 
he  told  story  after  story,  to  which  the  child  on  his 
lap  listened  in  fascinated  absorption.  They  were 
only  such  stories  of  the  camp  and  field  as  any 
veteran  of  the  great  war  could  tell ;  but  they  had 
that  charm  which  lies  in  every  soldier's  story,  and 
his  hearer  forgot  her  dislike  of  cannons  and  her 
feminine  objections  to  the  waste  of  human  life  in 
listening  to  him. 


184  THE  MIDGE 

He  stopped  suddenly,  ashamed  of  his  enthusi 
astic  freedom  of  speech.  It  was  past  eleven 
o'clock.  He  told  Lodoiska  Agnes  that  she  ought  to 
be  in  bed.  She  looked  somewhat  surprised;  but 
made  no  remonstrance. 

Sliding  down  from  his  knee,  she  stood  a  moment 
in  meditation,  and  then  asked : 

"What  is  it  that  you  want  for  breakfast?" 

Before  she  had  finished  the  question,  the  tears 
of  shame  came  into  her  eyes.  He  gathered  her  up 
again,  and  told  her  that  he  would  like  nothing 
better  than  another  breakfast  just  such  as  she  had 
given  him  that  morning.  He  had  not  had  such  a 
breakfast  in  many  years,  he  declared,  with  the  con 
vincing  fervor  of  truth,  and  he  did  not  see  how  it 
could  be  improved  upon. 

"I  cannot  cook  for  you,"  she  murmured,  sadly; 
"I  do  not  cook  so  good  as  I  have  thought  I  could 
cook." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I'll  tell  you  what  it  is.  I've 
been  thinking  about  this  cooking  business,  and  I 
think  I  see  what  we've  got  to  do.  You're  going 
away  after  a  while,  you  know" — she  slipped  a 
finger  into  his  buttonhole,  and  he  stroked  her 
small  hand  as  it  hung  there — "and  I  shall  have  to 
get  a  cook  who  '11  stay  here.  See  I  Now  you  know 
all  about  cooking — though  of  course  you  aren't 
just  ready  to  take  hold  of  a  bachelor  establish 
ment  and  do  all  the  work  yourself — 'twasn't  to  be 
expected  of  you.  So  I  thought  I'd  engage  a  cook — 
just  a  plain,  common  cook,  and  you  could  kind  of 
hang  around  and  break  her  in — oversee  her  and — 


THE  MIDGE  185 

and — boss  her.  You'd  be  the  housekeeper,  as  it 
were — head  of  the  establishment,  and  all  that.  I 
think  it 's  rather  more  in  your  line.  And  then  you 
could  take  your  meals  with  me,  quiet  and  comfort 
able.  What  do  you  think  of  the  scheme  1 ' ' 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  cried,  her  eyes  dilating,  "that 
would  be  good." 

"Yes,"  he  went  on,  "Pve  engaged  the  cook,  and 
she's  coming  to-morrow,  and  you  can  take  right 
hold  and " 

He  stopped  short.  What  was  he  doing?  This 
was  a  pretty  way  to  prepare  her  for  her  transfer 
to  the  milliner 's  in  Harlem.  He  had  been  voicing 
a  wild  fancy,  and  he  had  not  realized  how  far  he 
was  going.  She  saw  his  embarrassment. 

1 '  Why  do  you  stop  ?    Go  on. ' ' 

"Well,"  he  began,  feebly,  "I  was  just  think 
ing " 

"What?" 

"Well — you  mightn't  like  the  place." 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said  with  decision:  "I  will  like 
it.  I  would  like  to  stay  with  you.  I  like  you  bet 
ter  than  any  one — except — except " 

He  drew  her  closer  to  him  in  token  of  under 
standing;  but  he  did  not  attempt  to  account  to 
himself  for  a  certain  internal  wincing  that  he  felt 
at  the  clause  of  limitation.  The  human  animal  is 
naturally  and  healthily  a  jealous  animal. 

"It  is  then  omelette  and  anchovy  toast?"  she 
concluded,  considering  the  question  settled.  '  '  And 
you  like  the  radish  always,  eh?" 

He  felt  pitifully  weak  as  he  assented,  promising 


186  THE  MIDGE 

himself  that  to-morrow  he  would  tell  her  that  she 
must  go  away. 

1  '  Good-night, ' '  he  said,  as  he  rose.  She  frankly 
lifted  up  her  mouth  to  be  kissed,  and  as  he  bent 
over  her  he  wished  in  his  soul  that  he  had  done  his 
duty  and  had  it  over.  He  felt  almost  like  a  traitor 
as  he  touched  her  lips,  thinking  of  what  he  was 
hiding  from  her. 

When  he  was  in  his  own  room,  he  sat  down  on 
the  edge  of  his  bed  and  pondered.  What  was 
going  to  happen  to-morrow,  when  he  told  her  that 
she  must  leave  him?  She  evidently  had  no  idea  of 
anything  of  the  sort.  Even  the  going  to  Europe 
was  to  her  something  remote,  not  worthy  of  pres 
ent  consideration.  His  conscience  troubled  him. 
He  had  done  wrong  in  letting  her  tie  herself  up  to 
him  and  to  this  temporary  home.  What  would  she 
think  of  him  when  he  sent  her  up  to  the  milliner's 
shop  in  Harlem  1  And  what  would  she  think  of  the 
milliner 's  shop  1  He  had  once  seen  Mme.  Pigault  's 
sister — a  busy,  fussy,  commonplace  little  French 
woman;  not  at  all  like  good  Mme.  Pigault.  She 
was  only  a  modified,  improved  and  prosperous 
Mme.  Goubaud.  He  felt  instinctively  that  the 
child  would  not  like  her. 

Well,  it  was  of  no  use,  his  sitting  there  and 
thinking  it  over.  The  thing  must  be  done  to-mor 
row,  and  another  time  he  would  be  more  careful. 
But,  he  reflected,  in  mingled  relief  and  regret,  he 
was  not  likely  another  time  to  encounter  another 
Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot. 

He  rose,  and  was  about  to  begin  undressing, 


THE  MIDGE  187 

when  lie  noticed  that  his  dressing-gown  was  miss 
ing.  It  always  hung  at  the  foot  of  the  bed ;  but  he 
remembered  that  he  had  left  it  in  the  bathroom 
that  morning  when  he  went  up  to  arbitrate  the 
quarrel  between  his  two  cooks,  and  that  he  had 
subsequently  seen  it  in  the  sitting-room,  where 
Lodoiska  Agnes  had  draped  it  picturesquely  over 
the  end  of  the  sofa. 

He  tapped  at  the  door.  There  was  no  answer, 
and  he  opened  it  softly  and  slipped  in.  The  gas 
was  still  burning,  and  there,  before  the  fire,  the 
child  sat  in  his  big  armchair,  toasting  her  bare 
feet.  She  was  wrapped  in  the  red  dressing  gown, 
which  stood  out  in  hideous  discord  with  the  green 
reps. 

"Well,  I'll  be— blest!"  exclaimed  the  Doctor; 
"aren't  you  in  bed  yet?" 

Startled,  she  jumped  down  and  faced  him, 
huddling  the  too  ample  garment  about  her  in  a  way 
that  suggested  a  desire  to  conceal  some  more  inti 
mate  deficiencies  of  attire. 

' l  No, ' '  she  said,  "  I  am  not  fatigued.  I  go  to  bed 
always — twelve,  one  o'clock  sometimes." 

"Not  here  you  don't,"  the  Doctor  corrected  her 
vigorously :  "  if  you  want  to  stay  here  you  've  got 
to  turn  in  when  the  drum  beats.  Pile  right  into 
bed,  young  woman,  and  leave  that  article  of 
clothing  where  I  can  get  at  it,  or  I'll  have  to  tie  a 
blanket  around  me  to  get  to  my  bath  in  the 
morning. ' ' 

She  turned  obediently  to  the  couch,  which  she 
had  already  prepared  for  the  night. 


188  THE  MIDGE 

"All  right.  You  come  back  in  two  seconds,  you 
find  it  there,  on  the  chair. ' ' 

She  waited  for  him  to  go,  but  he  lingered  in  a 
new  perplexity. 

"I  say,"  he  commenced,  hesitatingly,  "aren't 
you  in  the  habit — I  suppose  you  are — but — don't 
you  generally  say  something  before  you  go  to 
bed?" 

"Say  what?" 

"Why,  say  a  prayer,  or  something.  Most  peo 
ple  do  it — when  they  ain't  grown  up,"  the  spirit  of 
truth  compelled  him  to  add. 

She  opened  her  eyes,  and  shook  her  head. 

"No — not  me — never." 

"Didn't  your  mother  teach  you  to  say  your 
prayers?" 

She  shook  her  head  again,  bewildered. 

"No." 

He  felt  dimly  that  a  moral  responsibility 
devolved  upon  him,  and  that  he  was  not  quite  up  to 
it,  at  the  moment.  He  turned  away  in  uncomfort 
able  irresolution.  She  called  him  back. 

"You  want  me  to  say  prayers?"  she  asked. 

< « Why — yes.     Seems  to  me  it  would  be  better. ' ' 

"All  right,  if  you  want." 

And  in  an  instant  she  had  dropped  on  her  knees, 
the  great  red  dressing-gown  puffing  out  around  her, 
and  before  the  Doctor  could  quite  grasp  the  situa 
tion,  she  had  rattled  through  an  "Ave  Maria, 
gratia  plena. ' '  Then,  still  on  her  knees,  she  looked 
up  at  him  and  calmly  inquired,  "How  many?" 

"That's  enough,"  said  the  Doctor,  and  returned 


THE  MIDGE  189 

to  his  own  room.  " Maybe  it's  too  much,"  he 
reflected.  He  had  no  idea  of  taking  her  religious 
training  in  hand;  but  when  he  fell  asleep,  a  little 
later,  his  brain  was  drowsily  working  to  recon 
struct  the  exact  wording  of  a  simple  formula  of  his 
childhood,  which  had  somehow  slipped  his  memory 
in  the  course  of  years,  and  which  began : 

"Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep; 
I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep." 

Yes,  he  had  actually  forgotten  the  third  line. 
He  knew  the  Ave  Maria  better.  He  had  heard  it 
oftener  in  sick-rooms  and  hospitals.  Oneida 
County  was  a  long  way  from  the  French  quarter 
of  New  York. 


VII 

PELOUBET  was  more  discouraging  than  ever 
when  Dr.  Peters  informed  him  that  he  pro 
posed  to  make  the  Talbot  child  his  guest  until 
her  relatives  sent  for  her.  The  Doctor  had  come 
to  this  decision  while  smoking  his  after-breakfast 
pipe.  He  had  debated  the  question  within  himself 
all  night,  and  had  satisfied  himself  a  dozen  times 
over  that  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  order 
Lodoiska  Agnes  to  put  herself  in  charge  of  the 
milliner.  He  was  considering  ways  and  means  of 
avoiding  or  mitigating  the  necessarily  consequent 
"scene,"  when  it  suddenly  dawned  upon  his  mind 
that  he  had  not  the  slightest  intention  of  doing 
anything  of  the  sort ;  and,  greatly  relieved  in  spirit, 
he  marched  off  to  Peloubet  to  tell  him  so. 

Peloubet  was  really  doubtful  this  time.  He  had 
made  the  suggestion  the  day  before,  but  it  was  only 
in  a  jocular  way — just  as  he  had  talked  about  the 
Doctor's  vast  wealth.  This  serious  acceptance  of 
the  idea  staggered  him.  He  was  a  good,  sensible, 
liberal-minded  man,  but  he  was  a  Frenchman,  and 
he  had  a  Frenchman's  ideas  and  prejudices.  The 
Frenchman  in  him  had  a  struggle  with  reason  and 
experience  before  he  gave  his  grave  and  dubious 
consent.  After  all,  though,  there  was  nothing  to 
be  said  against  the  proposition.  Dr.  Peters  could 

190 


THE  MIDGE  191 

have  qualified  in  any  court  as  a  proper  guardian 
for  the  child — and  it  was  a  saving  to  the  Society. 
"You  will  ripport  ev-ver-y  wick,  eh?"  he  said: 
"Eet  is  a  fo'malitee — Jos'  write  me  a  line — I  put 
it  on  ze  file. ' ' 

The  temporary  guardian  of  Lodoiska  Agnes 
felt  an  almost  boyish  light-heartedness  as  he 
trudged  from  butcher  to  baker,  and  from  baker 
to  grocer,  that  cold,  sharp,  clear  morning,  exe 
cuting  domestic  commissions.  He  felt  that  he  was 
having  fun ;  that  he  was  going  to  have  fun.  Per 
haps  he  felt  also  that  he  had  not  behaved  exactly 
like  a  rational,  sober,  sensible  man,  forty  years 
old;  but  the  boy  in  him  rather  enjoyed  its  own 
assertion  of  independence.  He  was  not  at  all  sure 
that  he  didn't  want  to  run  away  from  the  man  of 
forty,  and  forget  his  dull  adult  rule. 

He  was  at  home  by  one  o'clock,  with  his  arms 
full  of  bundles,  and  when  he  reached  his  hallway, 
he  whistled  "Boots  and  Saddles"  up  the  kitchen 
stairs.  There  was  no  reply,  and  then  he  remem 
bered  that  he  had  a  parcel  to  stow  away  in  his  own 
room.  He  put  it  on  the  upper  shelf  of  the  closet, 
and  went  up  stairs  after  Lodoiska  Agnes.  She 
was  not  in  the  kitchen.  ' i  Here !  young  woman ! ' ' 
he  called,  and  glanced  vainly  into  the  pantry.  He 
waited  for  the  answer  that  did  not  come,  and  then 
he  looked  in  the  servant's  room,  in  front.  There 
was  no  trace  of  the  small  housekeeper.  He  ran 
down  stairs  and  glanced  through  the  rooms.  She 
was  not  there.  He  looked  hastily  in  every  corner, 
but  she  was  not  there.  Up  stairs  again,  he  called 


192  THE  MIDGE 

her,  and  got  no  answer.  "Here!  young  one! — 
you — Lo-do-is-ka!"  he  cried.  Perhaps  she  had 
gone  out  on  some  errand.  But  just  then  he 
remembered  that  her  outer  garments,  which  were 
a  jacket  and  a  little  black  straw  hat,  were  still  at 
Mme.  Goubaud's.  They  had  been  hanging  in  the 
old  woman's  room  when  she  took  her  flight,  and 
Mme.  Goubaud  had  promised  to  send  them  around, 
and  had  not  kept  her  promise.  He  knew  that,  for 
Alphonsine  had  come  out  to  thank  him  as  he  passed 
through  Houston  Street  that  afternoon,  and  she 
had  bewailed  her  mistress's  bad  faith.  A  sick 
feeling  came  over  him.  He  looked  around  to  see  if 
a  window  was  open.  What  a  fool  he  was !  Prob 
ably  the  child  had  gone  down  stairs  to  scrape 
acquaintance  with  the  tenants  of  the  lower 
kitchens.  Yes,  that  was  it.  She  was  lonely,  and 
she  had  gone  down  stairs.  He  would  descend 
and  see.  Then  came  the  thought  that  he  might 
not  find  her  there,  and  he  cast  one  more  hopeless 
glance  into  the  depths  of  the  pantry. 

When  Dr.  Peters  had  first  undertaken  to  imitate, 
on  the  top  floor  of  a  New  York  lodging-house,  the 
New  Netherlands  homestead  kitchen  of  his  boy 
hood,  he  had  a  vivid  memory  of  his  mother's 
pickle-jar.  That  memory  represented  it  as  a 
stoneware  crock  of  colossal  size.  He  pictured  it 
to  incredulous  dealers  as  being  about  a  yard  in 
diameter.  They  one  and  all  assured  him  that  no 
such  crock  had  ever  been  known  in  the  New  York 
market.  He  expressed  his  unflattering  opinion  of 
the  New  York  market,  and  continued  his  search. 


THE  MIDGE  193 

Finally,  an  enterprising  man  had  one  made  for 
him.  It  came,  about  a  year  after  his  plan  of 
housekeeping  had  faded  into  an  unsubstantial 
dream.  It  was  twenty-four  inches  across  the  top, 
and  stood  nearly  three  feet  high.  He  then  per 
ceived  that  the  family  of  a  Biblical  patriarch  could 
not  have  needed  such  a  pickle-jar.  And  he  remem 
bered  also  that  he  had  never  cared  much  for 
pickles.  He  paid  the  bill,  and  he  put  the  crock 
on  its  side,  in  a  corner  of  the  pantry's  lowest  shelf. 
There  it  lay,  year  after  year,  doomed  to  be  for 
ever  pickle-less. 

There  it  lay  now,  with  Lodoiska  Agnes  in  it. 
She  was  seated  on  a  stool,  her  head  and  shoulders 
and  arms  within  the  vast  hollow  of  that  crock. 
The  Doctor,  his  heart  suddenly  light  once  more, 
went  to  her  and  gently  pulled  her  out.  She  had 
been  crying;  her  face  was  wet  with  tears  and  her 
hair  was  wildly  "  mussed. " 

" What 's  the  matter!"  he  asked. 

1  i  Maman, ' '  she  replied,  simply. 

She  cried  a  little  more  on  his  shoulder,  and  con 
sented  to  be  comforted.  "I  was  alone,"  she  said, 
' '  and  I  wanted  to  be  in  the  night. ' ' 

He  lavished  caresses  upon  her  with  a  warmth 
that  she  did  not  quite  understand,  and  that  was 
something  of  a  revelation  to  the  Doctor  himself. 
He  told  her  eagerly  how  the  Benevolent  Society 
had  consented  to  let  her  stay  with  him  until  her 
uncle  should  want  her.  She  listened,  but  with  no 
great  interest.  She  had  never  contemplated  any 
other  order  of  things.  He  told  her  more  about 


194  THE  MIDGE 

filise,  who  was  coming  that  afternoon.  He 
had  stopped  at  Mme.  Pigault's  to  get  the 
bundle  now  in  his  room;  but  he  said  nothing 
about  that. 

Soon  they  were  chatting  cheerfully  over  their 
housekeeping  schemes.  He  made  a  diversion  to 
tell  her  how  frightened  he  had  been  when  he  could 
not  find  her ;  and  he  remembered  how  he  had  strug 
gled  with  her  polysyllabic  first  name. 

"By  the  way,"  he  asked,  "what  am  I  going  to 
call  you?" 

"My  name?  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Tal- 
bot.  It  is  long ;  but  it  is  nice,  don 't  you  think  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  I  know;"  and  he  laughed:  "it's  a  nice 
name;  but  it  won't  do  for  family  use.  *  Lodoiska' 
is  too  long,  and  I  don't  know  what  to  call  it  for 
short,  and  you  don't  seem  to  me  to  be  *  Agnes,' 
somehow;  and  I  can't  call  you  either  of  the 
Hunts." 

"  *  Lodoiska'  is  a  nice  name,"  she  observed, 
gravely. 

"Yes,  but  it's  altogether  too  much  of  a  name  for 
a  little  midget  like  you. " 

"What  is  a  midget?"  she  inquired. 

"Why — "  he  hesitated:  "a  midget — a  midget  is 
a  little  thing  like  you. ' ' 

She  was  standing  before  him  as  he  leaned 
against  the  table,  holding  her  hands.  She  cer 
tainly  was  very  small. 

"Why,"  he  went  on;  "you're  not  even  a  midget 
— you  're  a  midge. ' ' 

* ' '  Midge, ' ' '  she  said,  giving  the  word  a  curiously 


THE  MIDGE  195 

pretty  little  French  turn,  "  '  Midge '  is  a  nice 
name. ' ' 

"It's  not  usually  given  to  girls,  though.  What 
— what  did — what  are  you  usually  called? " 

"Cherie,"  she  said,  "or  petite,  or — you  know — 
just  some  name  like  that.  They  said  that  same 
thing  what  you  said  about  Lodoiska — it  is  too  long. 
I  think  you  call  me  ' Midge' — I  like  that  name. 
It  is  not  everybody  has  it." 

"I  should  think  not,"  he  assented,  smiling. 
"  'Midge '—'Midge '—well,  it  isn't  so  bad.  We'll 
try  it." 

"And  now,"  she  began,  looking  calmly  up  at 
him,  "what  I  call  you,  eh?" 

"My  name  is  Evert  Peters." 

"Doctor  Evert  Peters?" 

"Well,  they  call  me  so." 

She  reflected. 

' '  '  Doctor,  '"she  repeated :  "  I  like  not  that.  It 
is  too  much  physic.  Peters — no.  I  call  you 
Ev-ert." 

He  smiled  at  the  dainty  un-English  accentua 
tion. 

"Ev-ert,"  she  said  again:  "Yes,  that  is  good. 
I  call  you  Ev-ert." 

The  innocent  audacity  of  the  idea  caught  his 
fancy.  How  many  years  it  was  since  any  one  had 
called  him  "Evert"!  and  it  had  a  pretty  sound  as 
she  spoke  it.  Yes,  she  should  call  him  "Evert" — 
for  three  weeks. 

"  'Evert'  it  is!"  he  said,  gayly,  and  caught  her 
up  and  kissed  her. 


196  THE  MIDGE 

filise  came  later  in  the  afternoon,  a  tidy,  grizzled 
little  woman,  with  a  face  like  a  small  and  well-dis 
posed  gargoyle.  The  housekeeper  was  pleased 
with  her,  and  they  got  on  pleasantly  together,  set 
ting  amiably  to  work  to  prepare  dinner. 

The  result  of  the  collaboration  was  satisfactory. 
At  six  o  'clock  the  Doctor  and  the  Midge  sat  down 
to  a  modest,  but  well-cooked  meal,  the  serving 
whereof,  having  been  left  to  the  Midge,  was  graced 
with  numerous  refinements,  unsubstantial  in  them 
selves,  but  appetizing  in  conjunction  with  the 
labors  of  filise.  She  herself  called  his  attention 
to  them,  with  frank  pleasure  in  her  skill,  and  gave 
him  hints  of  the  way  in  which  these  accomplish 
ments  had  been  acquired. 

There  was  a  napkin  folded  so  as  to  resemble  a 
snail-shell,  with  the  snail's  horned  head  peeping 
out. 

"That,"  she  asserted,  "is  a — what  is  then  the 
word  in  English? — a  chef-d'oeuvre.  The  other 
things  all  the  world  can  do ;  but  that  is  the  Art,  you 
understand — that  is  an  invention.  It  was  Alcide 
who  inventioned  that.  Alcide  was  our  waiter  at 
the  hotel  at  Nice.  Not  at  Mme.  Cavelli — that 
was  the  little  pension — boarding-house — where 
we  went  first — but  up  at  the  hotel.  We  have 
gone  there  after  Papa  had  his  great  luck  at 
Monaco. " 

"Eh?"  broke  in  the  Doctor,  with  his  fork  poised 
in  the  air. 

'  '  He  made  much  money  at  Monaco — at  the  Bank. 


THE  MIDGE  197 

Three  thousand  francs.  It  was  not  for  long.  He 
had  bad  luck  next  week." 

"  Gambling  ?" 

It  was  her  turn  to  say ' '  Eh  f  " 

''What  do  you  mean  by  'luck'?" 

"Oh!  He  made  money  at  the  play — at  the  table. 
They  play  cards  there — thousands — oh,  thousands 
of  people,  all  at  the  same  time.  Sometimes  they 
make  much  money.  Most  times  they  lose.  The 
bank  makes  all  the  money  most  times.  It  is 
amusing." 

The  Doctor  distinctly  heard  the  call  of  duty. 

"In  this  country  we  think  it's  wrong  to  do  that 
— to  play  cards  for  money." 

"You  think  that?  That  is  amusing,  too,"  she 
said,  with  pleasant  indifference. 

The  Doctor  was  silent.  He  felt  himself  helpless. 
He  did  not  try  to  illuminate  with  the  rushlight  of 
an  impromptu  disquisition  on  the  sin  of  gambling 
the  vast  moral  darkness  that  this  answer  revealed. 
But  he  tried  to  sound  the  profundity  of  her  igno 
rance  ;  and  he  led  the  conversation  by  slow  degrees 
to  the  subject  of  religion,  and  made  some  desultory 
inquiries  into  the  faith  of  her  parents.  The  topic 
did  not  interest  the  Midge,  and  she  gave  him  but 
scanty  information  before  she  skipped  away  to 
some  more  congenial  theme.  Maman  was  a 
Catholic,  she  said;  but  she  did  not  go  to  confes 
sion.  Maman  said  that  was  superstitious,  and 
Papa  said  so  too.  Papa  was  a  Church  of  Eng 
land  man.  That  was  the  only  church  for  a  gentle 
man,  he  said.  He  did  not  go  to  church,  of  course ; 


198  THE  MIDGE 

there  were  no  churches  of  that  kind  anywhere  they 
had  been.  Yes,  that  was  strange;  but  Papa  said 
there  were  none.  Papa  knew  a  great  many 
priests.  He  liked  them  when  they  played  piquet. 
She  liked  them  too,  herself.  Pere  Mathieu  was 
very  nice.  He  always  gave  her  bonbons.  Some 
times  he  brought  the  bonbons  in  the  same  pocket 
with  his  tobacco,  and  that  was  not  nice.  But  it 
was  good  of  him,  all  the  same.  Pere  Mathieu 
drank  too  much  wine.  And  then  she  asked  the 
Doctor  if  he  did  not  think  it  was  bad  to  drink  too 
much  wine. 

At  nine  o'clock  he  told  her  that  he  was  going 
around  to  the  Brasserie  Pigault  for  an  hour.  The 
announcement  was  made  with  some  awkwardness ; 
but  it  was  received  with  a  cheerful  submission  that 
rather  disappointed  him.  If  he  had  known 
more  of  womankind,  it  might  have  put  him  on 
his  guard. 

She  got  him  his  hat  and  coat,  and  she  mentioned 
a  number  of  small  occupations  with  which  she  pro 
posed  to  while  away  the  period  of  his  desertion. 
She  accepted  her  prospective  loneliness  meekly 
and  uncomplainingly,  making  no  manner  of 
remonstrance.  But  when  he  left  her,  she  stood  at 
the  head  of  the  stairs  and  watched  him  go.  He 
reached  the  lower  hall  and  lingered  a  moment  to 
hear  her  turn  back  in  his  room  and  shut  the  door. 
But  he  caught  no  sound  from  above,  and  he  went 
out  with  the  uncomfortable  feeling  that  the  lonely 
little  figure  was  still  standing  there,  at  the  top  of 
the  stairs,  looking  down  the  way  he  had  gone. 


THE  MIDGE  199 

The  comforts  of  the  Brasserie  Pigault  did  not 
appeal  to  him  that  evening.  He  had  gone  there 
as  a  matter  of  principle,  feeling  that  there  was 
something  weak  in  breaking  up  his  regular  habits, 
even  to  please  himself.  Yet  he  could  not  enjoy  his 
beer  while  he  had  the  unpleasant  feeling  that  took 
possession  of  him  as  he  thought  of  the  lonely 
Midge  at  the  top  of  the  dark  stairs.  He  refused 
to  play  a  game  of  dominoes  with  Mr.  Martin,  and 
then  he  felt  still  more  uncomfortable,  as  he  saw 
the  poor  old  gentleman  sit  watching  the  door,  in 
hopes  that  M.  Ovide  Marie,  or  some  other  friendly 
soul,  would  come  in  to  play  with  him. 

Dr.  Peters  read  two  columns  of  editorials  in  one 
of  the  morning  papers.  When  he  had  finished  the 
two  columns,  he  found  that  he  had  paid  no  atten 
tion  whatever  to  the  meaning  of  the  words.  He 
was  thoroughly  dissatisfied  with  himself.  He 
decided  to  go  home  and  go  to  bed.  It  was  early, 
of  course ;  but  then  he  could  stroll  slowly  back,  and 
perhaps  walk  a  few  blocks  up  Fifth  Avenue.  It 
was  a  fine  night,  and  not  cold.  The  brasserie  was 
close  and  warm.  A  saunter  in  the  open  air  would 
be  just  the  thing  for  him.  But  when  he  was  once 
in  the  street,  he  walked  home  as  straight  and  as 
fast  as  he  could. 

The  Midge  welcomed  him  with  a  kiss,  making 
him  bend  down  so  that  she  might  put  her  arms 
about  his  neck.  His  attitude  was  symbolic,  and 
he  recognized  the  fact.  He  knew  why  he  had  come 
home ;  he  knew  that  she  knew  it,  and  he  felt  that 
he  was  being  rewarded  for  good  behavior.  It  was 


200  THE  MIDGE 

his  turn  for  submission.  He  accepted  his  subju 
gation  in  penitent  gladness. 

She  invited  him  to  sit  down  in  the  easy-chair, 
and  she  climbed  on  his  knee  and  tucked  her  head 
under  his  ear ;  and  they  sat  there  chatting  for  an 
hour.  She  treated  him  to  various  small  caresses 
from  time  to  time.  It  was  very  pleasant;  but  he 
remembered  the  case  of  the  butcher's  boy,  and  ho 
began  to  have  a  dim  idea  of  what  she  meant  by 
" being  nice"  to  people.  It  disturbed  him  a  little. 
He  had  not  known  that  they  began  so  young. 

Lacking  any  positive  knowledge  on  the  subject, 
the  Doctor  concluded  that  half -past  ten  was  a  good 
hour  for  a  child  of  twelve  to  go  to  bed ;  so  at  half- 
past  ten  she  prepared  her  temporary  couch,  by  his 
orders.  Then  he  sent  her  into  the  hall-way  to 
turn  out  the  gas,  and  he  made  a  hurried  trip  to  his 
own  room  and  back.  After  he  had  bidden  her 
good-night,  and  had  closed  the  door  behind  him, 
she  found  on  her  bed  a  package.  Mme.  Pigault 
had  acted  as  the  Doctor's  agent  in  purchasing  the 
contents.  They  supplied  certain  crying  needs  in 
the  Midge's  wardrobe.  Presumably  they  an 
swered  their  purpose.  But  never,  not  on  the  mor 
row,  or  at  any  time  thereafter,  did  she  make  the 
slightest  mention  of  them. 


It  was  not  three  days  before  the  Doctor  woke  to 
an  uneasy  consciousness  that  he  had  made  a  grave 
misstep.  He  had  to  acknowledge  to  himself  that 
an  attachment  of  the  affections  was  beginning  to 


THE  MIDGE  201 

bind  him  to  this  waif  who  must  in  a  couple  of 
weeks  be  sent  across  the  ocean  to  her  natural 
guardians  and  protectors.  And  when  he  admitted 
to  his  reason  that  the  attachment  was  growing, 
within  his  heart  he  knew  that  it  had  grown — the 
mischief  was  done.  And  the  worst  of  it  was — she 
was  the  worst  of  it.  There  was  nothing  of  the 
coxcomb  about  Dr.  Peters.  He  was  rather  mod 
estly  distrustful  of  all  proffered  affection,  from 
man,  woman  or  child.  He  knew,  moreover,  how 
often  a  child's  fondness  is  a  mere  cat-like  adapta 
tion  to  agreeable  conditions.  But  he  perceived  in 
this  child  an  ardent  temperament  and  a  precocious 
decision  of  character  that  gave  her  likes  and  dis 
likes  the  weight  and  value  of  maturity.  And  that 
she  was  seriously  fond  of  him,  already,  there  was 
no  doubt.  She  was  a  waif,  and  she  was  tying  her 
self  up  to  him  as  the  one  thing  stable  and  trust 
worthy  in  a  stormy  world. 

Seeing  all  this,  dreading  the  parting  close  at 
hand,  he  proceeded  to  make  the  situation  worse 
day  by  day.  When  a  strong  will  is  once  handed 
over  to  the  control  of  the  ill-regulated  affections, 
those  beggars-on-horseback  are  wont  to  ride  their 
prey  pretty  hard.  With  a  complete  abandonment 
of  discretion  and  common-sense,  Dr.  Peters  de 
voted  all  his  time  to  the  society  of  a  weird,  strange, 
heathenish  infant,  of  foreign  extraction,  who  did 
not  belong  to  him,  and  who  had  dangerously  cling 
ing  ways  about  her. 

After  his  overthrow  on  the  second  evening  after 
her  arrival,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  give  up 


202  THE  MIDGE 

the  Brasserie  Pigault  during  the  Midge's  stay. 
Pretty  soon  he  found  that  he  was  giving  up  every 
thing  else  in  the  way  of  individual  initiative.  If 
he  went  to  walk,  he  took  her  with  him.  If  he 
worked  at  his  gun,  it  was  only  when  she  conde 
scended  to  perch  on  his  work-bench  and  chatter  to 
him.  Work  was  neglected  when  it  struck  her 
vagrant  fancy  that  they  both  would  be  better  em 
ployed  looking  in  the  shop-windows  on  Broadway, 
or  inspecting  the  steamers  at  the  West  Street 
piers. 

It  was  very  foolish;  it  was  worse  than  foolish, 
he  guiltily  admitted  to  himself  when  he  thought  it 
over  at  night,  after  the  little  one  had  gone  to  bed. 
It  was  a  self-indulgence  likely  to  bring  cruel  con 
sequences. 

Look  at  it  whatever  way  he  might,  he  could  only 
reproach  himself.  His  conscience  told  him  of  the 
wrong  he  was  doing  the  child,  and  his  reason  had 
no  adequate  excuse  to  offer.  True,  he  had  been 
lonely.  He  had  not  known  the  measure  of  his  own 
loneliness  until  her  advent  opened  his  eyes.  She 
filled  his  days  so  full  of  bright  companionship  that 
he  began  to  realize  how  empty  they  had  been  be 
fore  she  came;  how  much  emptier  they  would  be 
after  she  had  gone.  And  yet — did  he  want  to  keep 
her  with  him?  No,  he  had  to  answer  himself. 
How  could  he  take  charge  of  this  untutored  mind, 
assume  the  vast  responsibility  of  her  education, 
moral  and  mental,  take  upon  himself  the  burden 
of  shaping  her  life  ?  Of  course,  there  was  no  need 
of  thinking  of  it — it  was  not  a  possibility  to  be 


THE  MIDGE  203 

considered — but  if  even  in  the  speculation  of  fancy 
he  was  forced  to  acknowledge  that  he  did  not  care 
to  have  the  child  for  his  own,  what  right  had  he  to 
treat  her  as  though  she  were  indeed  his? 

But  ten  days  slipped  away,  and  two  weeks,  be 
fore  he  finally  cast  up  accounts  with  himself.  He 
had  made  two  or  three  attempts  to  hold  her  off  at 
arm's  length,  by  way  of  preparing  her  for  the  ap 
proaching  separation.  They  had  been  pitiful  fail 
ures.  She  had  only  nestled  the  closer,  each  time. 
And  now,  he  reflected,  it  was  too  late.  The  order 
of  separation  must  come  in  a  week.  Conscience 
should  be  silent  for  that  week,  while  he  and  the 
Midge  enjoyed  their  comradeship.  And  con 
science  acquiesced  with  base  and  treacherous  read 
iness,  until  three  days  or  so  before  the  letter  from 
Europe  was  due,  rising  up  then  to  torment  him 
with  refreshed  vigor. 

The  letter  should  have  arrived  on  a  Saturday. 
It  did  not  come  then,  nor  on  Monday,  nor  on  Tues 
day.  He  felt  nervous  and  unstrung.  He  took  to 
excessive  smoking.  The  Midge  concluded  that  he 
was  sick,  and  consoled  him  with  caresses  which  he 
received  in  shame  and  abasement  of  spirit.  He 
wished  the  letter  would  appear,  to  end  the  matter ; 
but  he  clung  to  each  hour  of  suspense,  and  when  it 
turned  up  on  "Wednesday,  he  was  no  more  ready 
for  it  than  he  had  been  a  fortnight  before. 

It  was  a  brief  letter;  but  it  was  clear  and  ex 
plicit.  Sir  Eichard  Talbot  did  not  feel  himself  in 
a  position  to  undertake  the  care  of  Mrs.  Hugh  Tal- 


204  THE  MIDGE 

bot's  child.  He  had  already  extended  to  his  un 
fortunate  brother  all  the  assistance  in  his  power. 
The  claims  upon  him  were  such  that  he  did  not  feel 
justified  in  going  to  any  further  expense.  He 
begged  leave  to  inform  Dr.  Peters  that  his  broth 
er's  marriage  had  been  made  against  the  wishes 
of  his  family,  and  that  he,  Sir  Eichard,  could  not 
consent  to  consider  himself  as  in  any  way  respon 
sible  for  the  maintenance  of  his  brother's  child. 
If,  however,  the  child  could  be  placed  in  a  respect 
able  orphan  asylum,  not  under  the  charge  of 
Eomanists  or  Dissenters — this  was  a  positive  con 
dition — Sir  Eichard  would  pay  any  necessary  fees. 
If  Dr.  Peters  would  communicate  with  Sir  Eich 
ard 's  lawyers,  whose  address  was  enclosed,  he 
would  find  them  fully  advised.  They  would  also 
be  prepared  to  make  good  to  Dr.  Peters  any  ex 
penditure  of  money  or  time  which  he  might  have 
been  obliged  to  make  on  account  of  the  child. 

"By  thunder!"  said  the  Doctor  to  himself,  "he 
did  want  to  'tip  me  'arf-a-crown, '  for  a  fact." 

Sir  Eichard 's  niece  came  into  the  room  while  the 
Doctor  was  tearing  up  the  letter  and  dropping  the 
pieces  into  the  fire. 

"Midge,"  he  said,  "how  would  you  like  to  stay 
with  me — I  mean  for  good  and  all — forever  ? ' ' 

"But  certainly  I  will  stay  with  you  forever," 
she  said,  rubbing  her  cheek  against  his  coatsleeve : 
"What  is  it  you  have  thought!" 

"I  thought  you  were  going  to  your  uncle  in 
England." 


THE  MIDGE  205 

She  pursed  her  lips  and  shook  her  head  in  airy, 
contemptuous  negation. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  never  have  meant  to  go 
there.  I  have  meant  to  stay  with  you." 


VIII 

IT  was  done.  The  move  was  made,  and,  like  a 
wise  commander,  the  Doctor  burned  his  ships 
without  procrastination.  That  day  he  called 
upon  Peloubet,  and  the  next  day  Sir  Bichard's 
lawyers  were  notified  that  the  child  was  in  charge 
of  the  French  Benevolent  Society,  and  that  she 
would  be  properly  cared  for  without  cost  to  Sir 
Eichard.  And  the  lawyers  informed  their  client 
of  this  fact,  and  frankly  advised  him  to  take  no 
further  steps  in  the  matter.  He  took  none. 

The  Doctor  went  before  the  Board  of  Control  of 
the  Society,  established  his  respectability  and  re 
sponsibility,  and  was  formally  made  the  guardian 
of  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot.  And  then, 
to  finish  his  work,  he  took  the  Midge  to  Mme. 
Pigault,  a  dressmaker  was  called  in,  and  the  three 
of  them  "confectioned"  a  wardrobe.  The  Midge 
had  a  voice  in  all  that  was  said,  and  the  wardrobe 
did  not  lack  the  stamp  of  her  individuality.  She 
wanted  to  have  some  mourning  dresses;  but  the 
Doctor  emphatically  objected,  and  so  she  gave  up 
the  idea  and  went  in  for  artistic  arrangements  of 
red  ribbon. 

So  it  was  finished ;  the  last  scruple  of  conscience 
was  satisfied;  there  was  no  act  left  undone  in 
formal  confirmation  and  establishment  of  his  im- 

206 


THE  MIDGE  207 

pulsive  adoption  of  the  child.  What  he  had  under 
taken  hastily  he  had  carried  out  with  honest 
deliberation.  And  now  he  could  afford  to  ask 
himself  about  the  wisdom  of  it. 

There  is,  I  believe,  a  disease  known  as  "en 
gaged-fright."  It  is  said  to  attack  young  men 
and  women  who  are  betrothed,  when  they  realize 
that  in  the  game  of  matrimony  they  have  put  their 
stakes  upon  the  table,  and  the  wheel  is  spinning. 
In  some  instances,  it  forces  them  to  snatch  their 
money  back,  and  withdraw  from  the  game.  But 
in  the  majority  of  cases,  they  struggle  against  the 
sensation,  feeling  that  they  have  gone  too  far  to 
get  out  honorably  or  comfortably,  and  they  leave 
it  to  time  and  married  life  to  "pinch  into  its 
pilulous  smallness  the  cobweb  of  pre-matrimonial 
acquaintance."  Thus  do  many  blunder  into  hap 
piness. 

The  Doctor's  feelings  were  not  unlike  those  of 
a  very  unsettled  young  man  in  wholly  different 
circumstances.  If  his  doubts  could  have  affected 
his  action,  he  would  have  been  positively  unhappy. 
But  he  reflected,  with  a  shameful  satisfaction  in 
the  moral  weakness  of  his  defense,  that,  for  better 
or  worse,  the  matter  was  settled ;  he  had  only  to  do 
his  best,  and  trust  that  all  would  be  well. 

But  doubts  rose  up  to  harass  him  in  such  num 
bers  that  in  the  midst  of  his  trouble  he  had  a 
humorous  suspicion  of  the  morbid  and  fantastic 
nature  of  their  origin. 

No  possible  suggestion  of  future  misfortune  was 
spared  him.  What  did  he  know,  after  all,  of  this 


208  THE  MIDGE 

child?  What  inherited  traits  might  she  not  have 
that  would  cause  him  trouble  hereafter?  What 
ugliness  of  character  might  she  not  develop,  to  put 
herself  outside  of  his  affection  and  regard  ?  And 
even  if  she  were  all  that  she  should  be,  what  guar 
antee  could  he  give  himself  that  his  own  fondness 
for  her  would  not  some  day  wear  out  in  the  sel 
fishness  of  age?  Was  he  not  unwise  to  open  the 
gate  of  that  quiet  garden-plot  of  his  life,  to  let  in 
a  stranger  from  the  street,  who  would  share  with 
him  his  secluded  walks?  Had  he  not  been  in  sole 
possession  too  long  to  bear  such  intrusion  with 
lasting  good  grace? 

He  asked  himself  such  questions  as  these.  He 
even  went  further,  and  questioned  the  sincerity 
and  genuineness  of  the  child 's  affection  for  him. 
From  this  he  came  back  to  sanity,  when  he  per 
ceived  the  depths  of  cynical  speculation  in  which 
the  idea  involved  him. 

But  when  the  unprofitable  self -torment  was  put 
aside,  enough  remained  to  worry  him.  The  Midge 
had  shown  no  evil  tendencies  whatever;  but  she 
dwelt  serenely  in  an  atmosphere  of  pagan  un- 
morality,  doing  right  only  by  natural  impulse  and 
an  innate  sense  of  ethical  good  taste.  He  did  not 
feel  sure  that  he  was  competent  to  undertake  her 
education ;  and  if  he  were,  he  did  not  know  where 
to  begin. 

The  time  to  come  dismayed  him.  In  ten  or  a 
dozen  years  she  would  become  of  marriageble  age. 
Where  was  he  to  find  her  a  husband  ?  The  Doctor 
was  not  socially  ambitious,  nor  given  to  overmuch 


THE  MIDGE  209 

observation  of  class  distinctions ;  but  he  could  see 
that  his  little  circle  of  casual  acquaintances  was 
not  likely  to  furnish  forth  an  eligible  husband  for 
a  young  woman  of  rather  delicate  clay.  And  if 
she  did  not  marry,  what  then!  When  he  himself 
came  to  die,  at  sixty  or  seventy — the  Doctor 
thought  that  he  would  be  ready  to  die  at  sixty  or 
seventy — was  he  to  leave  her  in  mature  but  un 
protected  maidenhood? 

When  a  man  is  in  a  morbid  state  such  as  this, 
and  is  trying  to  keep  his  internal  irritation  to  him 
self,  a  chance  abrasion  from  the  outside  penetrates 
his  self-consciousness  with  peculiar  cruelty.  He 
feels  that  the  world  knows,  or  is  likely  to  know, 
what  a  pitiable  thing  he  is;  and  every  trifling 
annoyance  to  his  pride  seems  like  a  wound  at  the 
hand  of  malicious  contempt.  Madame  Pigault  un 
wittingly  stabbed  the  Doctor  under  the  fifth  rib, 
and  he  himself  gave  the  blade  a  twist. 

He  had  dropped  in  to  pay  the  dressmaker's  bill, 
and  lingering  a  moment  to  chat,  for  he  felt  some 
what  of  a  deserter  under  the  Pigault  roof,  his 
awkwardness  in  his  new  position  betrayed  him 
into  a  clumsy  jest. 

"I  feel  rather  strange,  Madame  Pigault,"  he 
said,  "entertaining  a  young  lady  in  my  bachelor 's 
hall.  But  I  guess  I'm  old  enough.  You  don't 
think  people  will  talk,  do  you?" 

"What  shall  they  talk?"  demanded  Mme. 
Pigault,  with  sympathetic  warmth.  "They  can 
only  say  that  you  are  very  good.  We  other 
women,  we  will  not  speak  bad  of  you.  It  is  not 


210  THE  MIDGE 

every  man,  voyez-vous,  Monsieur  le  Docteur,  who 
is  generous  like  you.  We  know  that — we  know 
what  they  are,  the  men.  May  the  good  God  have 
pity  on  us !  But  we  know  what  they  are.  They 
will  only  say  you  have  behaved  noble. ' ' 

The  Doctor  murmured  a  confused  acknowledg 
ment,  and  digested  the  compliment  when  he  got 
out  in  the  street.  His  cheeks  burnt  when  he  un 
derstood  it. 

'  '  I  'm  damned, ' '  he  said  to  himself, '  *  if  they  ain  't 
beasts!" 

They  were  aliens  and  strangers.  He  had  lived 
among  them  for  fifteen  years ;  but  they  were  aliens 
and  strangers,  after  all.  He  could  never  be  quite 
at  home  with  them;  they  could  never  be  to  him 
exactly  as  his  own  people.  There  was  always  a 
difference — a  something  at  bottom  that  was  irrec 
oncilable  with  perfect  understanding  or  friend 
ship.  Here  was  this  woman,  a  religious  woman, 
a  good  wife,  a  good  mother,  calmly  and  as  a 
matter  of  course  putting  this  hideous  interpre 
tation  on  his  simple  action.  Had  they,  then,  no 
decent,  natural  clean-mindedness?  He  remem 
bered  how  in  his  boyhood  he  had  walked  to  morn 
ing  church  by  his  mother's  side,  and  how  they  had 
passed  the  French  Canadians  who  formed  a  little 
colony  near  by,  strolling  home  from  mass.  His 
mother  had  looked  the  other  way  as  they  went  by ; 
but  he  had  stared  at  them  in  contempt  mingled 
with  a  certain  awe  at  the  audacity  of  creatures 
who  could  dare  to  live  and  breathe,  and  yet  refuse 
to  conform  to  the  correct  standard  of  Protestant 


THE  MIDGE  211 

America.  Was  there  not,  indeed,  some  justifica 
tion  for  his  childish  narrowness  of  mind?  Was 
not  the  stamp  of  a  hopeless  inferiority  upon  the 
race? 

He  was  vexed  and  hurt;  but  after  a  while  his 
sense  of  justice  asserted  itself.  He  had  convicted 
Mme.  Pigault  of  wronging  him  with  an  unclean 
suspicion;  but  he  had  to  give  her  credit  for  the 
charity  that  pardoned  the  imputed  sin,  and  cor 
dially  approved  the  supposed  penitential  repara 
tion.  He  could  not  help  thinking  that  he  was 
lucky  to  live  in  a  community  where  such  a  misun 
derstanding  could  not  possibly  put  an  innocent 
child  under  a  cruel  social  ban. 

He  had  another  remembrance  of  Oneida  County. 
He  remembered  when  Injun  Jane  came  down  from 
the  Reservation  to  sell  baskets.  She  brought  her 
boy  with  her,  and  none  of  the  boys  of  the  town 
would  play  with  him.  Everybody  knew  that  he 
was  the  son  of  Pete  Doolittle,  who  owned  the  farm 
back  of  the  Peters 's,  and  who  had  also  a  family  of 
young  Doolittles,  born  with  the  sanction  of  society 
and  religion.  But  nobody  would  play  with  Injun 
Jane's  Joe,  and  so  while  she  sold  baskets  at  the 
kitchen  door,  he  stood  alone  in  the  road,  a  bright, 
slim  boy,  not  much  browner  than  the  other  coun 
try-bred  youngsters,  noticeably  different  only  in 
his  black,  coarse,  straight  hair,  like  a  colt's  mane. 
He  was  proud  and  silent,  and  he  made  no  attempt 
to  speak  to  any  of  them;  but  twanged  his  won 
derful  snakewood  bow  and  sent  arrow  after  arrow 
through  a  knot-hole.  It  was  his  one  form  of  silent 


212  THE  MIDGE 

self-assertion,  and  the  other  boys  in  their  hearts 
envied  his  skill,  as  they  hung  over  the  fences  and 
jeered  at  him  as  loudly  as  they  dared  to.  Evert 
Peters  had  been  one  of  those  mean  boys  in  his 
time,  and  he  thought  of  it  with  shame.  Yet  he 
knew  that  it  had  not  been  from  inborn  meanness 
in  him,  or  in  Visscher  Jansen,  or  in  Phil  Doolittle. 
They  had  merely  reflected  the  sentiment  of  the 
elder  community.  It  seemed  that  there  were  ex 
pansions  of  Christian  charity  in  the  French  quar 
ter  of  New  York  that  were  unknown  in  Oneida 
County. 

There  were  plenty  of  annoyances  for  the  Doctor, 
in  his  new  capacity  of  guardian;  but  he  did  not 
doubt  and  suffer  wholly  as  one  without  hope.  He 
might  arraign  himself  for  his  unwise  soft-hearted- 
ness;  but  he  continued  to  be  soft-hearted,  and  he 
enjoyed  the  consequences.  He  felt  that  he  was 
having  a  good  time,  a  better  time,  in  every  way, 
than  he  could  ever  remember  before.  Viewed  as 
a  responsibility,  the  Midge  undeniably  caused  him 
uneasiness;  but  considered  as  a  companion,  she 
was  unmixed  and  unlimited  fun.  Even  when  the 
companion  gave  way  to  the  fatherless,  motherless 
child,  and  she  sobbed  on  his  shoulder,  her  personal 
grief  never  put  her  apart  from  him.  He  had  al 
ways  the  knowledge  that  his  love  and  tenderness 
were  a  consolation  to  her,  and  her  every  outburst 
of  grief  for  those  she  had  lost  made  her  somehow 
more  his  own. 

She  had,  moreover,  in  her  vehement,  earnest 
nature,  a  faculty  of  feeling  one  thing  at  a  time 


THE  MIDGE  213 

which  helped  her  greatly  through  the  first  hard 
weeks.  When  she  put  aside  her  sorrow,  she  de 
voted  herself  to  what  she  had  in  hand  wholly  and 
thoroughly.  When  she  thought  of  pleasing  or 
serving  her  protector,  she  gave  him  her  eager 
affection  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  every  other 
interest.  He  got  into  the  habit  of  slipping  in  to 
look  at  her  an  hour  or  two  after  she  had  gone  to 
bed,  and  he  often  found  her  awake  and  crying 
softly  to  herself.  But  when  he  sat  down  by  her 
side  and  began  to  soothe  her,  she  resolutely  dried 
her  tears,  and  turned  her  whole  attention  to  him, 
and  he  became,  for  the  time,  the  one  important 
being  in  her  small  world.  So  her  housekeeping, 
which  was  something  between  work  and  play,  was 
all-engrossing  while  she  was  about  it.  Her  sense 
of  loss  was  loyally  strong  and  lasting;  but  its 
manifestations  were  intense  and  exclusive,  and 
when  it  had  found  its  relief,  she  took  up  her  new 
life  in  the  same  spirit  of  loyalty. 

She  certainly  put  her  whole  soul  into  the  fur 
nishing  of  her  bed-room.  It  was  the  large  back 
room.  The  Doctor  had  given  it  up  to  her,  and  had 
taken  his  models  and  tools  to  the  front  hall-room 
up  stairs.  This  was  only  a  temporary  arrange 
ment,  so  far  as  his  work  was  concerned ;  but  he  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  well  to  let 
the  work  go,  for  a  little  while.  He  would  come 
back  to  it  with  a  fresh  zest,  and  he  might  thus 
accomplish  more.  And  he  was  not  quite  certain 
in  his  own  mind  whether  it  was  worth  while  to  go 
on  with  the  cannon  or  not.  His  original  idea 


214  THE  MIDGE 

seemed  to  have  grown  antiquated.  And  at  one 
time  he  had  had  some  notion  of  trying  to  simplify 
the  mechanism  of  the  sewing-machine.  Perhaps 
it  might  be  wise  to  look  into  the  sewing-machine 
question  once  more.  At  any  rate,  he  could  do 
nothing  until  the  Midge  was  really  settled,  and 
their  various  plans  of  home-making  were  carried 
out. 

The  room  was  certainly  very  pretty  when  the 
Midge  at  last  took  possession.  He  was  surprised 
to  see  how  his  own  conception  of  what  a  room 
should  be  had  been  disregarded  with  pleasing 
effect.  There  was  a  Frenchy  chintz-pattern  paper 
on  the  walls,  with  a  darker  dado — this  was  the 
Doctor's  first  experience  of  a  dado — and  there 
were  curtains  and  portieres  of  cretonne.  Cre 
tonne  and  portieres  were  also  new  words  to  him. 
He  could  not  quite  remember  how  these  things  had 
been  done.  The  tradesmen  had  suggested  them, 
to  the  best  of  his  remembrance;  the  Midge  had 
approved,  with  a  prompt  exhibition  of  easy  famil 
iarity  with  such  matters ;  he  had  disapproved,  and, 
somehow,  there  the  things  were,  and  he  was  sat 
isfied.  He  had  wanted  black  walnut  furniture, 
and  had  sternly  objected  to  mahogany  with  brass 
trimmings  as  being  old-fashioned;  but  he  had 
yielded  to  the  supercilious  scorn  of  the  dealers  and 
the  strong  backing  the  Midge  gave  them,  and  there 
was  the  mahogany  and  brass,  just  like  that  which 
he  had  seen  in  his  boyhood,  except  that  it  was  more 
shiny.  There  was  only  one  thing  in  the  room  that 
he  had  bought  uncontrolled  and  unaided,  and  that 


THE  MIDGE  215 

was  the  brass  bedstead,  with  its  light  chintz-draped 
tester.  And  he  never  would  have  bought  that  if 
the  Midge  had  not  casually  and  artlessly  described 
such  a  bed,  which  she  had  seen  in  a  stolen  peep 
into  the  apartments  of  some  royal  personage  in  a 
French  watering-place  hotel. 

The  general  effect  was  creditable  to  the  Midge. 
He  had  had  to  chasten  her  somewhat  extravagant 
taste  in  certain  particulars.  She  had  expressed  a 
yearning,  repressed  at  his  especial  desire,  for 
white  and  gold;  and  he  felt  that  he  had  not  been 
too  firm.  He  had  been  obliged  to  deny  her  a 
bisque  clock,  representing  a  pannier  of  roses ;  and 
he  had  stood  out  against  a  waxed  floor.  But,  look 
ing  on  the  work  as  a  whole,  it  dawned  upon  him 
that  the  Midge  had  some  lights  in  matters  of  taste 
which  had  never  been  revealed  to  his  artistic  con 
sciousness. 

Yet  there  were  some  of  her  fancies  that  were 
quite  incomprehensible  to  him.  While  they  were 
in  the  way  of  furnishing,  they  made  some  radical 
changes  in  the  sitting-room,  to  its  great  improve 
ment  ;  and  for  the  uneasy  easy-chair  of  faded  green 
reps,  they  substituted  a  leather-covered  structure 
that  was  as  comfortable  as  it  was  big.  But  the 
Midge  insisted  on  taking  the  discarded  piece  of 
furniture  into  her  pretty,  new  room,  and,  despite 
his  protests,  she  had  a  slip-cover  of  chintz  made 
for  it,  and  put  the  ungainly  thing  in  a  sunny  corner 
by  the  window  and  sat  in  it  to  sew  and  to  study. 

For  she  had  begun  a  course  of  study.  She  had 
at  first  expressed  a  doubt  as  to  there  being  any- 


216  THE  MIDGE 

thing  left  for  her  to  learn ;  but  after  a  test  examina 
tion,  the  Doctor  had  become  convinced  that  not 
only  must  her  education  be  taken  in  hand  at  once, 
but  he  must  take  it  in  hand  himself.  No  school 
was  fitted  to  cope  with  such  a  bewildering  combina 
tion  of  knowledge  and  ignorance.  In  simple  arith 
metic  she  had  great  proficiency.  She  could  calcu 
late  with  marvelous  rapidity  in  French,  German, 
English  and  American  currency.  She  had,  so  to 
speak,  an  empirical  knowledge  of  European  geog 
raphy.  She  could  read  fluently  in  French  and 
English.  But  she  had  never  regarded  it  as  neces 
sary  or  expedient  to  learn  to  spell  in  either  lan 
guage.  He  asked  her  to  give  him  a  specimen  of 
her  handwriting.  She  evaded  compliance  at  the 
moment,  but  the  next  morning,  when  he  left  the 
house,  he  found  this  note  hid  in  his  hat : 

Mi  dire  everte 

i  louve  you  bot  i  louve  not  the  riting 

i  can  djiographie  a  ritmatique  franche  ingliche  and  a  litle 
too  couque  bot  not  the  riting  seau  wel 

i  dounot  thingue  it  is  goude  for  a  wouman  too  nau  too  muche 
howe  too  rite 

i  am1  your  afectuous  f rend 

midj 

When  he  had  got  this  insight  into  her  system 
of  phonetics,  he  went  out  and  bought  a  lot  of 
school-books,  and  he  began  his  task  of  instruction 
with  many  forebodings.  But  she  soon  relieved  his 
fears.  She  saw  that  he  desired  it,  and  she  studied 
hard.  She  learned  only  too  rapidly;  but  she  re 
tained  a  fair  proportion  of  what  she  learned.  Of 


THE  MIDGE  217 

course,  he  had  to  make  some  allowance  for  her 
habits  of  independent  thought.  To  the  end  she 
retained  a  profound  contempt  for  the  unpractical 
character  of  the  man  who  wrote  the  spelling-book. 

"Acme,  apostroph',  asiJi-ma,"  she  said,  running 
her  finger  down  the  column,  "what  shall  he  want 
of  such  words  like  those?  I  never  shall  say  them. 
Apple,  acorn,  ashes — there  is  the  sense.  If  you 
go  take  a  walk  in  the  country,  you  see  acorns,  you 
see  apples.  But  you  never  shall  say:  'See  the 
beautiful  apostroph'  ' — 'look  at  the  fine  asth-ma.' 
It  is  a  stupidness,  to  write  such  words  that  nobody 
will  say." 

The  spelling-book  was  a  humiliation  for  the 
Midge,  and  in  self-defense  she  sought  to  vindicate 
her  claim  to  intellectual  maturity  by  demanding 
some  French  books  to  read.  The  Doctor  went  to 
the  little  "Librairie"  with  the  blue  sign,  in  South 
Fifth  avenue,  and  bought  a  couple  of  volumes  of 
the  Bibliotheque  Rose — the  "Memoires  d'un  Ane" 
and  "PAuberge  de  PAnge  Gardien."  She  con 
temptuously  rejected  both  as  childish  and  wholly 
beneath  her.  She  wanted  novels.  So  late  one 
afternoon  he  made  a  solitary  excursion  to  Bren- 
tano's. 

The  winter  was  nearly  over.  It  was  a  soft, 
moist,  slushy  day — toward  the  end  of  February. 
The  city  was  soaked  in  soiled  snow,  rapidly  melt 
ing  into  soiled  water.  The  shop  doors  were  open, 
and  through  them  came  the  rumble  of  stage-ridden 
Broadway,  pierced  by  the  high,  shrill,  humming 
ring  of  the  car- wheels  on  the  rails.  A  thin  stream 


218  THE  MIDGE 

of  handsomely  dressed  women  trickled  in,  swerved 
from  counter  to  counter,  and  trickled  out.  Here 
and  there,  browsing  on  the  fields  of  outspread 
books  and  pamphlets,  were  odd-looking  men ;  men 
who  would  have  been  noticed  in  a  crowd,  each  for 
some  eccentricity  or  individuality  of  dress  or  per 
sonal  appearance;  men  whom  one  would  have 
called  "professional,"  without  exactly  knowing 
why.  In  the  "music  department,"  a  piano  was 
pealing  forth  the  latest  waltz,  and  a  dozen  pretty 
bonneted  heads  nodded  in  time  with  its  measure. 
The  well-dressed  clerks  moved  leisurely  about, 
chatting  in  a  friendly  way  with  old  customers.  It 
did  not  look  like  a  shop.  The  whole  thing  sug 
gested  an  afternoon  reception ;  and  the  clerks  car 
ried  out  the  idea.  They  looked  like  a  reception 
committee.  The  Doctor  felt  somewhat  as  though 
he  were  intruding  upon  a  semi-private  social  af 
fair.  He  hardly  knew  which  way  to  turn,  or  how 
to  go  about  his  business  of  book-buying. 

There  was  a  pretty  young  woman  at  the  desk. 
She  had  a  sweet  and  kindly  face,  and  the  Doctor 
addressed  himself  to  her.  She  pointed  with  her 
pen  to  the  far-off  counter  where  the  French  books 
were  sold,  and  when  he  reached  it,  a  courteous 
young  Frenchman  laid  before  him  a  half  dozen  of 
the  latest  importations.  The  covers  were  enough 
for  the  Doctor. 

"Here!"  he  expostulated,  "this  won't  do.  I 
want  something  for  a  young  lady — pour  une  jeune 
fille—seel  This  isn't  the  sort  of  thing  at  all." 

But  the  courteous  young  Frenchman  had  been 


THE  MIDGE  219 

carried  off  by  a  group  of  rather  too  well-dressed 
men,  with  handsome,  over-fed  faces,  who  seemed 
to  be  in  search  of  just  that  "sort  of  thing/'  in  a 
more  exalted  degree. 

"Try  this!"  said  a  voice  over  his  head.  The 
Doctor  looked  up  bewildered,  and  saw  on  the  top 
of  a  small  step-ladder,  set  against  the  bookshelves 
on  the  wall,  a  broad-shouldered  young  man  in  a 
rough  tweed  suit,  with  a  cloth  traveling  cap  on 
the  side  of  his  head.  He  had  a  handsome,  happy, 
boyish  face,  with  curling  fair  hair  and  blue  eyes, 
strikingly  dark  for  his  complexion.  On  his  upper 
lip  was  what  might  some  day  be  a  moustache,  and 
under  it  he  showed,  as  he  smiled,  white,  even 
teeth.  He  looked  down  at  the  Doctor  and  the  blue 
eyes  laughed  with  amiable  mischief.  For  a  mo 
ment  he  stood  holding  out  a  book,  and  then  he 
poised  himself  on  one  toe  and  skipped  down  from 
his  perch  much  as  a  cat  comes  down  a  wall,  land 
ing  almost  as  lightly. 

"This  is  the  sort  of  thing  you  want,  I  guess,''  he 
said:  "there  isn't  a  blush  in  it — perfectly  safe." 
He  handed  the  Doctor  a  copy  of  Sardou's  "Perle 
Noire,"  and  he  smiled  again  as  his  eye  ran  over 
the  volumes  that  had  been  proffered  by  the  cour 
teous  Frenchman. 

"Pretty  hard  lot  he  gave  you,  didn't  he?  But 
then  French  novels  mostly  are  a  pretty  hard  lot, 
Captain." 

"Why  do  you  call  me  Captain?"  the  Doctor 
asked,  sternly.  He  felt  a  certain  irritation.  He 
would  not  have  cared  to  own  to  himself  that  any 


220  THE  MIDGE 

part  of  it  was  attributable  to  the  stranger's  display 
of  athletic,  exuberant  youth.  Yet  one  has  to  be  a 
little  older  than  the  Doctor  was  to  look  quite  kindly 
upon  a  boy  in  his  first  years  of  spring  and  snap. 

"Well — you  are  a  captain,  aren't  you?"  laughed 
the  young  man :  "  or  you  have  been,  anyway. ' ' 

"Not  since  you  were  in  baby-clothes,"  returned 
the  Doctor,  grimly.  The  youth  flushed  under  the 
rebuke,  and  frankly  apologized. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  he  said;  "I  had  no 
right  to  be  so  fresh  with  a  man  of  your — to  talk 
like  that,  I  mean.  But  I  was  sure  you  were  a  mili 
tary  man,  or  had  been — I  knew  it  by  the  way  you 
carried  yourself.  I'm  in  the  navy — that  is,  I'm 
just  out  of  the  school-ship" — he  flushed  again — 
"and  I  want  to  get  transferred  to  the  army,  if  I 
can — so  you  see  I've  got  my  head  a  little  turned 
on  the  military  question." 

He  smiled,  and  the  Doctor  smiled  in  return. 

"That's  all  right,"  he  said,  "only  I'm  not  ac 
customed  to  using  a  title.  I  was  only  a  volunteer 
captain,  anyway,  and  colonels  and  majors  are  so 
cheap,  nowadays,  that  a  captain  is  nowhere. ' ' 

"They  were  somewhere,  though,  when  you  were 
a  captain,"  suggested  the  boy,  with  an  admiring 
look  in  his  eyes:  "I  wish  I'd  had  a  chance  at  the 
business  then — only  I  was  in  baby-clothes;"  and 
again  he  colored  and  laughed. 

"No,  you  don't,"  demurred  the  Doctor;  "you 
wouldn't  have  liked  it.  It  was  too — mussy.  Did 
you  tell  me  this  book  was  all  correct  and  proper?" 

"Straight  as  a  string,  sir.    How  old — I  beg 


THE  MIDGE  221 

your  pardon — but  how  old,  about,  is  the  young 
lady?     I  might  find  you  something  else." 

"Let  me  see, "  mused  the  Doctor,  aloud,  "let  me 
see.  She  was  born  twelve  or  thirteen  years  ago. 
That'll  make  her — say  about  eighteen  or  twenty, 
now,  as  far  as  I  can  calculate." 

The  young  man  stared  in  frank  amazement. 

"You  see,"  the  Doctor  went  on,  "she's  a  rather 
peculiar  young  woman.  You  can't  tie  her  down 
to  years,  the  way  you  would  any  one  else.  If  you 
want  to  put  it  in  plain,  solid  figures,  she's  only 
twelve  or  so.  But  sometimes  I  think  she's  a  little 
older  than  I  am  myself.  I'm  not  sure  that  I  can 
get  literature  aged  enough  for  her.  At  any  rate, 
she  wants  regular  grown-up  French  novels,  and 
she's  got  to  have  them — if  they  can  be  got  full 
blown  and  respectable. ' ' 

He  checked  himself  with  a  frown.  What  was 
he  doing,  running  on  thus  like  a  garrulous  proud 
parent,  in  the  presence  of  a  perfect  stranger !  It 
was  small  consolation  to  reflect  that  he  had  been 
talking  to  himself,  rather  than  to  the  stranger. 

But  the  young  man  set  things  right  with  his 
cheery,  friendly  laugh,  and  in  five  minutes  the 
two  were  ransacking  the  shop  for  virtuous  French 
fiction. 

When  their  search  was  ended,  the  afternoon 
reception  was  well-nigh  over.  In  the  streets  the 
gas-lamps  blazed  brightly  through  the  heavy  dusk, 
flickering  in  a  chill,  raw  wind  that  had  suddenly 
come  up  from  the  East  river.  The  Doctor  but 
toned  his  coat,  but  the  young  man  seemed  quite 


222  THE  MIDGE 

comfortable  in  his  tweed  suit,  as  they  strode  down 
University  Place  together. 

He  gave  the  Doctor  his  card — "Paul  Hatha 
way,  U.  S.  N." — and  the  Doctor,  who  had  no  card, 
imparted  his  name. 

It  was  Mr.  Paul  Hathaway 's  first  card-plate, 
beyond  a  doubt.  His  giving  the  card  was  un 
necessary,  for  one  thing,  and,  for  another,  he 
took  it  out  of  a  very  new  and  very  tightly  packed 
card-case.  And  in  his  giving  of  it  there  was  a 
certain  touch  of  conscious  importance  that  be 
trayed  the  novelty  of  the  act.  The  Doctor  felt 
sure  that  he  had  the  first  card  out  of  the  hundred 
that  Brentano  had  delivered  that  afternoon. 

Mr.  Paul  Hathaway  did  all  the  talking.  He 
spoke  of  himself,  of  the  school-ship,  of  the  short 
"leave,"  to  come  to  an  end  the  next  week,  of 
how  he  had  employed  it  in  making  sketching-tours 
around  New  York — he  was  a  bad  amateur  artist, 
he  explained. 

They  parted  at  Eighth  Street,  Paul  Hathaway 
going  off  to  his  East  Side  lodging;  and  the  Doctor, 
as  he  looked  at  the  light  sailor-like  swaying  of 
the  broad  shoulders  vanishing  in  the  wintry  dark 
ness,  felt  something  of  his  first  unreasonable  feel 
ing  of  irritation  coming  back  to  him.  Why  should 
the  spring  go  out  of  a  man's  walk  in  the  slipping 
away  of  a  few  miserable,  unnoticed  years  ? 

The  books  that  the  Doctor  brought  the  Midge 
that  night  were  a  mixed  lot.  There  was  "la  Perle 
Noire,"  "la  Petite  Fadette,"  "le  Roman  d'un 
Jeune  Homme  Pauvre,"  "Paul  et  Virginie," 


THE  MIDGE  223 

Feuillet's  "Sybille,"  "un  Philosophe  sous  les 
Toils''  and  "Elizabeth,  ou  les  Exiles  de  Siberie" 
— he  had  read,  in  his  boyhood,  '  '  Elisabeth,  or  the 
Exiles  of  Siberia,"  and  he  was  pleased  to  think, 
as  he  did,  that  it  had  been  translated  into  French. 

The  Midge  received  these  offerings  with  vary 
ing  favor.  Her  criticism  on  "Elisabeth"  was 
decided.  She  called  it  "rococo." 

Some  months  later,  the  Doctor  happened  to  take 
up  "Sybille,"  and,  after  glancing  at  a  page  or  two, 
he  read  it  through.  When  he  had  read  it  through, 
he  put  it  in  the  fire.  From  that  time  on  he  was 
the  implacable  foe  of  French  fiction  in  the  house 
hold. 


IX 

THE  winter  slipped  away  and  spring  was 
upon  the  land.  The  Doctor  found  trouble 
in  making  himself  believe  that  it  was  six 
months  since  his  fortress  had  been  invaded  by  the 
conquering  queen  whose  sweetly  imperious  rule  he 
was  glad  to  own.  He  had  looked  upon  the  time 
as  a  period  of  preparation,  of  making  ready  to 
settle  down  under  the  new  order  of  things.  It  was 
only  the  green  of  the  grass  and  the  blossoms  on 
the  trees  that  brought  to  him  a  realizing  sense  of 
the  fact  that  the  new  order  had  been  established 
long  before,  and  that  as  to  settling  down,  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  absolute  settling  down  while 
this  growing,  changing,  ever-developing  young  life 
formed  a  part  of  his  own.  He  could  never  come  to 
an  understanding  with  her,  as  he  had  come  to  an 
understanding  with  himself.  However  well  he 
might  grow  to  know  her,  her  own  highly  original 
individuality  must  take  its  own  course  of  evolu 
tion,  and  there  were  surprises  for  him  all  along 
the  course. 

Being  brought  up  with  a  round  turn  by  the 
change  of  the  seasons,  he  took  account  of  stock, 
after  a  fashion.  He  found  himself  best  able  to 
realize  the  changes  in  the  Midge  and  the  changes 
in  his  own  surroundings  by  considering  the  aston- 

224 


THE  MIDGE  225 

ishing  dimness  that  shrouded  the  past.  It  was 
hard  for  him  to  remember  that  things  had  ever 
been  otherwise  than  they  were  now.  The  meagre 
loneliness  of  his  life  seemed  something  of  ten  or 
twenty  years  back.  There  was  nothing  in  the 
Midge  to-day  to  suggest  the  pathetic  figure  of  the 
previous  December.  She  was  rather  plump  now, 
was  the  Midge;  certainly  pretty;  well-dressed, 
with  a  contented,  comfortable  air  about  her  that 
might  have  made  her  uninteresting  if  it  had  not 
been  for  her  inborn  coquetry.  She  had  just 
enough  whimsical  airiness  to  carry  off  her  self- 
complacency,  which  was  great  for  one  of  her  size. 

She  had  changed  in  other  ways,  too.  A  distinct 
Frenchiness  of  idiom  was  never  to  be  wholly  eradi 
cated  from  her  conversation;  but  she  was  no 
longer  positively  incorrect  in  speech,  except  under 
stress  of  excitement.  When  once  her  pride  had 
been  awakened,  she  had  put  all  her  energy  into  the 
task  of  self-improvement ;  and  she  modeled  her 
language  so  closely  on  that  of  the  Doctor  that  he 
was  obliged  to  reform  his  own  vocabulary  and 
give  heed  to  many  neglected  subtleties  of  English 
grammar. 

In  fact,  she  made  the  Doctor  her  model  to  an 
extent  that  alarmed  him.  Except  in  matters  of 
dress  and  gastronomy,  she  adopted  him  and  all  his 
codes,  whole  and  complete.  She  had  evidently 
become  aware  of  the  existence  of  standards, 
moral  and  social,  superior  to  those  of  her  infant 
years.  She  had  discovered  that  to  this  new  world 
into  which  she  had  come,  the  life  her  parents  had 


226  THE  MIDGE 

led  was  something  positively  objectionable.  The 
feminine  mind  makes  naturally  for  the  respect 
able;  and  the  Midge  accepted  the  new  standards 
and  secretly  felt  ashamed  of  the  old.  When  she 
spoke  of  her  parents  now,  it  was  never  to  recount 
their  vagabond  adventures ;  she  made  pitiful  little 
attempts  to  dress  them  up  in  her  memory  as  rather 
nice  and  important  people,  emphasizing  every 
thing  that  was  dignified  and  well-bred  about  them, 
and  tenderly  covering  up  all  that  was  mean  and 
poor. 

The  Doctor  was  glad  of  this.  The  rehabilita 
tion  of  the  Talbot  family  amused  him,  and  touched 
his  sense  of  the  pathetic.  He  was  glad,  further, 
to  note  her  quick  acceptance  of  his  cherished  prin 
ciples  of  conduct.  He  had  a  military  character, 
in  some  things.  He  was  scrupulously  truthful, 
punctiliously  faithful  in  the  discharge  of  duty, 
exact,  prompt,  temperate,  and  just,  as  far  as  in 
him  lay.  Or  at  least  he  tried  to  be  all  these,  and 
he  made  a  fairly  good  job  of  it  for  a  common  mor 
tal.  And  the  child  imitated  him  at  a  distance,  and 
with  a  feminine  difference. 

But  this  very  imitation  gave  him  a  new  cause 
for  uneasiness.  Dr.  Peters  was  reasonably  well 
satisfied  with  his  moral  code.  It  had  cost  him 
enough  to  construct  it,  in  bitter  struggle  with 
temptation  and  perplexity.  He  had  tried  it;  he 
had  lived  by  it ;  and  he  knew  that,  subject  to  fre 
quent  revision,  and  followed  in  due  humility,  it 
was  a  good,  practicable,  working  code.  But  back 
of  the  code  was  the  making  of  all  codes,  and  the 


THE  MIDGE  227 

standard  by  which  all  codes  must  be  judged.  And 
while  in  that  regard  he  was  at  ease,  how  was  it 
with  his  charge  ?  He  had  his  religion.  It  was  not 
a  creed,  nor  a  system,  nor  a  formula  of  any  sort. 
It  was  something  compounded  of  hope  and  fancy 
and  speculation,  that  satisfied  his  spiritual  crav 
ings.  It  was  the  private  adjustment  that  every 
thinking  man  makes  with  his  own  immortalities. 
But  he  knew  that  it  was  practically  incommuni 
cable.  He  could  not  write  it  out,  as  he  might  have 
written  out  his  views  on  conduct,  and  hand  the 
schedule  to  his  pupil  to  be  learned  over  night.  It 
was  the  growth  of  individual  experience  and  indi 
vidual  thought.  It  belonged  to  him.  and  to  him 
alone. 

Now,  was  he  not  in  honor  bound  to  provide  a  re 
ligion  for  the  Midge  f  He  could  not  expect  her  to 
construct  one  for  herself.  Women,  as  far  as  he 
knew,  had  their  religions  supplied  to  them  ready 
made,  and  were  supposed  to  take  them  without 
questioning.  His  mother  had  accepted  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles.  If  she  had  discovered  on  her  death 
bed  that  there  was  a  fortieth  that  should  have  been 
accepted  with  the  others,  in  the  first  instance,  and 
had  been  left  out  by  mistake,  she  would  have  ac 
cepted  it  without  asking  what  it  was. 

He  found  himself  facing  the  religions  of  the 
world,  and  called  upon  to  select  one  to  fit  a  child 
— one  that  she  would  not  grow  out  of;  one  that 
would  last  her  through  a  life  that  might  be  long 
or  short,  calm  or  troubled,  happy  or  miserable. 
He  was  only  a  plain  man,  who  had  been  a  medical 


228  THE  MIDGE 

student,  a  civil  engineer,  a  volunteer  soldier,  a 
would-be  inventor,  and  an  amateur  doctor.  He 
felt  humbly  ignorant  and  bewildered.  He  wished 
that  he  knew  more — or  less. 

What  complicated  the  matter  was  the  consid 
eration  that,  even  if  his  conscience  would  allow 
it,  he  could  not  pick  out  a  creed  at  random  and 
present  it  to  his  charge.  He  had  never  faced  the 
great  question  which  men  in  general  prefer  to  ig 
nore:  Do  women  reason?  He  did  not  face  it 
now.  But  he  knew  that  the  Midge  had  some  ap 
palling  logical  processes  among  her  intellectual 
functions.  And  he  reflected,  with  a  chilled  dis 
may,  that  her  final  test  of  anything  which  he  asked 
her  to  believe  would  be  to  ask  him  if  he  believed  it 
himself. 

It  was  an  awkward  situation  for  the  Doctor. 
When  the  Midge  first  came  to  him,  the  necessity 
of  improving  her  physical  health  had  been  of  the 
first  importance.  She  was  nervous  and  feeble, 
and  all  his  efforts  had  been  to  the  one  end  of  mak 
ing  her  sound  and  strong.  Sunday  had  been  their 
chosen  day  for  excursions  and  open-air  exercise. 
In  the  winter,  they  had  made  little  trips  to  Cen 
tral  Park,  or  had  taken  sleigh-rides,  when  there 
was  any  snow.  And  now  that  the  spring  had 
come,  and  was  fast  changing  to  summer,  they  had 
taken  their  Sundays  to  invade  Westchester,  Staten 
Island,  and  the  suburbs  of  Brooklyn  and  Jersey 
City. 

When  he  told  her  that  these  outings,  the  crown 
ing  joy  of  her  week,  must  be  abandoned,  and  that 


THE  MIDGE  229 

she  must  go  to  church,  she  acquiesced ;  but  her  dis 
appointment  was  unconcealable. 

He  took  her  to  the  chapel  where  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Pratt  preached.  Mr.  Pratt  was  surprised  to 
see  them  there.  He  had  always  supposed  that  Dr. 
Peters  attended  divine  service  somewhere  up 
town. 

They  went  three  times  to  Mr.  Pratt 's  chapel. 
The  second  and  third  Sundays,  Dr.  Peters  noticed 
that  the  Midge  ?s  lips  were  moving  silently  through 
all  the  time  of  service  and  sermon.  As  soon  as 
they  were  out  of  church  she  eagerly  addressed 
him: 

"Do  we  need  to  go  any  more?    I  know  it  now." 

"Know  what?"  demanded  the  Doctor. 

"All  those  things  they  say.  It  is  the  same 
every  Sunday.  I  have  learned  them  all  by  heart 
— I  will  say  them  to  you,  and  you  can  see." 

"But  they  aren't  the  same  thing  every  time, 
Midge.  The  lessons  are  different,  and  so  is  the 
collect. ' ' 

"Well,  we  can  read  those  at  home.  I  will  learn 
those,  too,  if  you  want." 

"But  the  sermon's  different.  Mr.  Pratt  has  a 
new  sermon  every  Sunday." 

"Oh,  Mis-ter  Pratt!"  she  returned,  with  inno 
cent  scorn;  "do  you  care  what  he  says,  Ev-ert? 
He  is  no  priest — Elise  has  told  me  so." 

Further  investigation  convinced  the  Doctor  that 
the  Midge  would  never  receive  the  ministrations 
of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  in  a  proper  spirit.  She 
had  disliked  him  at  their  first  meeting,  and  she 


230  THE  MIDGE 

had  since  learned  the  opinion  held  of  him  in  the 
quarter,  where  he  was  looked  upon  as  an  elegant 
amateur  of  religion,  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the 
same  breath  with  faithful,  conscientious  Father 
Dube,  or  even  with  energetic,  soul-amassing 
Brother  Strong,  of  the  Bethel. 

They  went  no  more  to  the  chapel,  and  the  out 
ings  began  again;  but  on  rainy  Sundays  the  Doc 
tor  slipped  out  by  himself  about  eleven  o'clock, 
each  day  visiting  a  new  church,  and  listening  at 
tentively  to  the  prayers  and  the  preaching. 

He  heard,  in  the  course  of  that  summer  and  the 
ensuing  fall,  a  great  deal  of  very  interesting  dis 
course  ;  but  he  did  not  come  across  any  variety  of 
religious  instruction  that  seemed  to  him  to  fit  the 
Midge's  case. 

In  the  autumn  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
was  beginning  his  search  at  the  wrong  end.  The 
Midge  was,  after  all,  a  child,  and  she  needed  the 
education  of  a  child.  He  sent  her  to  the  Sunday- 
school  of  the  chapel. 

The  Sunday-school  scheme  was  a  complete  fail 
ure  ;  but  it  brought  about  a  better  understanding. 
After  the  second  Sunday  of  attendance,  the  Midge 
revolted,  and  vigorously. 

"It  is  a  nonsense,  Ev-ert,"  she  said,  excitedly; 
"vois-tu,  they  have  given  me  this  little  yellow 
thing  to  learn" — and  she  held  up  a  printed  text — 
"and  I  can  learn  ten  hundred  of  those  in  a  day. 
And  they  have  told  me  such  histories ! — of  an  old 
man  who  is  mocked  of  the  little  boys,  and,  figure- 
toi,  there  are  bears  come  out  of  a  forest  and  eat 


THE  MIDGE  231 

them  up !  Is  it  that  I  am  a  child,  to  be  told  such 
stories  like  that?" 

"Oh,  Lord!"  groaned  the  Doctor,  "why,  that 
was  Elijah — or  Elisha — I  forgot  which.  Why,  he 
was  a  prophet." 

"I  do  not  know  what  was  his  business;  but  he 
had  no  hair.  And  I  am  not  a  little  boy  who  is  rude 
to  old  gentlemen.  Why  do  they  tell  me  such 
stories!" 

"My  dear,"  said  the  Doctor,  "you  needn't  go 
to  the  Sunday-school  any  more.  I  'm  going  to  take 
this  business  in  hand  myself.  It  seems  to  be  laid 
out  for  me  to  do  work  out  of  my  line,  and  I'm  go 
ing  to  stumble  right  on." 

He  got  down  from  his  bookshelf  his  mother's 
Bible,  which  stood  between  "Gummere's  Survey 
ing"  and  "Peveril  of  the  Peak,"  and  that  day  he 
began  a  course  of  readings  from  the  Scripture, 
accompanied  with  comment  and  criticism  of  a 
varied  and  often  original  nature,  remembered  tra 
dition  struggling  uncertainly  with  independent 
thought. 

The  Midge  was  interested  at  last.  She  was  al 
ways  willing  to  sit  on  the  ground,  with  her  head 
on  his  knee,  and  to  listen  wisely  to  his  reading  and 
to  his  remarks. 

Her  ingrained  skepticism  led  her  to  ask  for  his 
personal  confirmation  of  the  story  of  Eve  and  the 
serpent. 

"My  dear,"  he  answered,  gravely,  "we  can't 
tell  people  to  believe  things,  or  not  to  believe. 
Everybody  has  to  act  for  himself  or  herself.  My 


232  THE  MIDGE 

mother  died  believing  every  word  of  this,  from 
cover  to  cover.  I'm  in  a  sort  of  a  mixed  condi 
tion,  myself.  When  you  get  older — the  subject  is 
a  little  extensive  for  you,  just  at  present — you  can 
form  your  own  conclusions,  and  I'll  try  my  best 
to  help  you.  Just  now,  all  that  you  and  I  have 
got  to  do  is  to  get  all  the  good  we  can  out  of  it. 
As  to  the  serpent — well,  some  people  have  said 
that  this  is  a  sort  of  a  fable,  as  it  were ;  and  they 
say  the  moral  is  that  a  young  woman  may  some 
times  know  too  much,  or  think  she  does." 
The  Midge  was  silent. 


It  was  a  soft  September  day,  and  the  foliage  in 
the  parks  was  just  beginning  to  thin  out  and  look 
pale  in  the  warm  sunlight,  when  Dr.  Peters,  cross 
ing  Washington  Square,  found  Father  Dube  sit 
ting  on  a  bench,  with  a  smile  on  his  round  face  as 
he  watched  a  small  flock  of  brown  birds  hopping 
and  tumbling  about  a  crust  of  bread. 

"Hello,  Dube!"  he  hailed  his  friend,  "I  didn't 
know  you  ever  loafed." 

"But  I  do,"  said  the  priest,  his  smile  growing 
kinder,  though  it  was  not  a  cheerful  smile,  "I  am 
capable  not  only  of  loafing,  but  of  idle  thoughts. 
I  have  been  wishing  that  that  I  were  a  sparrow. ' ' 

"I  don't  wish  you  were  a  sparrow,"  rejoined 
the  Doctor,  sitting  down  on  the  bench  beside  him, 
"for  I  want  to  ask  your  advice,  and  I'm  not  ask 
ing  advice  of  sparrows." 

"I  am  not  a  sparrow,"  said  Father  Dube,  his 


THE  MIDGE  233 

smile  fading  out;  "I  am  a  priest,  and  I  will  give 
advice  to  any  one  who  wants  it.  That  is  what  I 
am  here  for.  Sometimes  I  think  that  it  is  all  I  am 
good  for." 

"I  hope  you  are  good  for  my  case,"  the  Doctor 
began ;  and  he  went  on  to  tell  the  story  of  his  per 
plexity  and  his  audacious  attempt  to  solve  the 
problem  for  himself. 

"I  don't  know  just  what  I  want  you  to  say,"  he 
concluded,  "and  I  don't  suppose  there's  anything 
you  can  say,  but  one  thing.  If  you've  got  any 
light  on  the  subject,  I  wish  you'd  shed  it  for  the 
benefit  of  a  humble  heretic.  You  and  I  don't  talk 
quite  the  same  language ;  but  I  guess  you  can  sort 
of  make  signs  that  I  can  understand." 

Father  Dube  clasped  one  knee  with  his  locked 
hands,  and  looked  hard  at  the  sparrows.  There 
was  a  shade  of  depression  on  his  face,  and  he 
spoke  slowly  and  in  a  tone  of  sad  gentleness. 

"I  suppose  you  think  you  know  what  I  will  say. 
Eh?  That  is  it?  'Make  her  a  Catholic.'  Well, 
no,  I  do  not  say  it." 

He  paused  for  a  moment. 

"You  cannot  make  her  a  good  Catholic,  while 
she  is  under  your  influence ;  while  she  believes  in 
you.  You  can  not  make  her  a  member  of  the 
Church  of  England.  You  know  it.  It  is  impos 
sible.  You  can  make  her  go  to  the  altar,  and  say 
her  prayers — but  you  know  that  that  is  not 
religion,  if  her  heart  is  not  there.  For  an  in 
telligent  person,  that  is  worse  than  no  religion 
at  all.  The  worst  enemy  of  the  Church  is  he 


234  THE  MIDGE 

who  kisses  the  cross  and  doubts  in  his  heart." 

The  priest's  tone  was  stern,  almost  severe;  but 
it  changed  to  genial  tenderness  as  he  turned  to  the 
Doctor  and  laid  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"It  is  God  who  makes  Catholics — it  is  not  Dr. 
Peters  or  Father  Dube.  Leave  it  to  Him.  Per 
haps  you  do  not  believe  in  Him?  I  do  not  know. 
I  have  known  you  for  many  years;  but  I  do  not 
know  your  thoughts.  I  know  your  heart,  how 
ever  ;  and  what  you  have  told  me — that  is  all  right. 
Go  on — teach  her  what  you  know — make  her  a 
good  woman.  That  is  all  you  can  do.  Do  not  try 
to  do  more.  You  will  not  do  it  well." 

He  rose,  and  clasping  his  hands  behind  him 
spoke  with  repressed  excitement. 

"My  friend,  it  is  not  every  one  who  shall  say  to 
himself:  *I  shall  serve.'  Look  at  me.  I  am  sixty 
years  old,  and  I  am  a  mistake."  He  looked  Dr. 
Peters  straight  in  the  eye.  "When  I  was  young, 
I  thought  I  had  a  vocation  for  the  priesthood.  I 
was  full  of  enthusiasm.  I  had  read  of  the  mar 
tyrs,  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Church.  I  said :  I  too, 
will  serve  her.  Well — it  is  now  forty  years,  and 
I  know  that  I  had  no  vocation.  I  had  only  ambi 
tion.  I  am  of  a  nature  that  is  not  fit  for  a  priest. 
I  love  my  ease,  I  indulge  myself.  I  am  tired.  I 
could  not  be  tired  if  I  had  been  called  to  my 
work.  Look  you,  Peters — me,  a  priest  of  God 
— it  is  distasteful  to  me  to  go  among  these 
poor  and  ignorant — my  heart  is  not  in  my 
work." 

"You  manage  to  control  your  distaste  pretty 


THE  MIDGE  235 

well,"  said  the  Doctor,  warmly.  "Don't  talk  in 
that  way  about  yourself.  I  know  what  you  do  for 
those  people. " 

"  I  do  my  work ;  but  another  would  do  it  better. 
They  like  me,  yes;  because  I  am  easy  with  them. 
They  know  I  have  not  the  heart  to  be  stern.  They 
can  put  me  off  with  any  story.  Anything  is  good 
enough  for  old  Dube.  It  is  not  men  like  me  who 
represent  the  dignity  and  authority  of  the  Church. 
There  is  Father  Quinlan" — he  pointed  across  the 
square — "they  respect  him." 

Quinlan  was  the  priest  of  a  neighboring  parish. 

" Quinlan 's  a  brute,  begging  his  pardon,"  said 
the  Doctor. 

"But  they  fear  him,  they  respect  him," 
repeated  the  old  man,  stubbornly.  He  was  silent 
for  a  moment,  and  then  he  broke  forth  again,  with 
uncontrollable  vehemence. 

"I  am  a  soldier  of  the  Church — yes.  But  what 
am  I  for  a  soldier?  I  am  a  sentinel — put  out  far 
in  the  forest.  What  do  I  see  of  Her  victories,  of 
Her  grandeur,  of  Her  glory?  What  have  I  done 
for  Her?" 

His  kind  old  face  was  drawn  with  lines  of  pain. 
He  looked  upward,  as  if  for  some  answer  from  the 
skies.  After  a  moment,  he  came  to  himself  with 
a  heavy  sigh. 

"That  is  all  wrong,  of  course,"  he  said  "You 
wonder  that  I  should  speak  so  to  you — to  you  who 
are  not  of  the  Church.  Well,  you  can  understand 
me  better  than  some  who  are  of  the  Church.  I 
have  done  wrong,  however.  And  you  came  to  ask 


236  THE  MIDGE 

me  for  advice.  Well,  I  have  given  it.  Good-bye, 
my  friend." 

He  walked  solemnly  away,  his  head  bent,  his 
hands  clasped  behind  him;  the  autumn  sunlight 
falling  on  him  as  he  walked  down  the  avenue  of 
trees. 

When  the  Doctor  reached  home,  the  Midge  was 
at  the  sitting-room  window. 

"I  saw  you  and  Father  Dube  in  the  square, " 
she  observed:  "you  were  talking  a  great  deal. 
What  was  it  about  ? ' ' 

' '  Oh,  of  all  sorts  of  things,  Midge, ' '  he  replied : 
"vocation,  and  religion  and  human  error,  and 
various  things." 

The  Midge  meditated  briefly. 

"Ev-ert,"  she  said,  "if  you  want  me  to,  I  will 
be  a  Catholic.  But  it  is  a  nonsense." 

"I  don't  think  it's  necessary,  my  dear." 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  that  I  shall  be,  then?" 

The  Doctor  crossed  the  room,  and,  taking  her 
face  between  his  hands,  lifted  it  up,  so  that  he 
could  look  into  her  eyes.  Then  he  asked : 

"Midge,  do  you  love  me?" 

"You  know  I  do!"  she  answered,  opening  her 
eyes. 

"Right  clean  through,  honest  and  true?" 

"Why,  Ev-ert — you  know  Yes." 

"And  you're  going  to  be  a  good  girl?" 

"Yes,"  she  assented,  in  opened-eyed  wonder. 

The  Doctor  looked  at  her  long  and  earnestly. 

"Well,"  he  said  at  last,  "I  guess  you  are." 


THE  fall  went,  and  winter  came,  and  Decem 
ber,  and  it  was  a  year  since  the  Midge  had 
entered  the  apartments  of  Dr.  Peters.  Then 
another  year  went  by,  and  another,  and  a  fourth 
Christmas  came.  Late  on  Christmas  eve  he 
slipped  a  gold  watch  and  a  huge  package  of  candy 
into  her  slim,  blue  stocking,  that  swung  from  the 
sitting-room  mantel.  He  scowled  as  he  tried  to 
think  that  he  and  the  Midge  were  three  years 
older. 

"Ain't  either,"  he  soliloquized;  "not  so  far  as 
I'm  concerned.  I'm  three  years  younger,  if  I'm 
anything." 

But  he  glanced  ruefully  at  the  long  stocking. 

"She  grows,"  he  thought. 

Their  life  was  so  regular  and  uneventful  that 
they  marked  the  movement  of  time  only  by  the  rec 
ord  of  the  calendar — the  annual  holidays  and  the 
changes  of  the  seasons.  Yet  the  Midge  was 
undoubtedly  growing.  She  now  wrote  and  spelled 
French  and  English  so  well  that  she  could  never 
have  passed  for  a  girl  educated  in  a  fashionable 
school.  She  had  begun  to  make  obscure  refer 
ences  to  a  serious  and  impending  future  of  "long 
dresses."  Her  hair  no  longer  hung  down  her 
neck.  It  was  braided  into  two  neat  tails,  which 

237 


238  THE  MIDGE 

were  spliced  together  with  effective  ribbons,  and 
these  tails  displayed  a  tendency  to  crawl  up  into 
a  coil  on  the  back  of  her  head!  Once  or  twice, 
even,  the  coil  had  given  place  to  a  loose  knot.  But 
the  appearances  of  the  knot  were  only  tentative, 
so  far. 

Her  education  was  getting  to  that  dangerous 
point  of  ambitious  beginning  when  young  ladies' 
educations  are  generally  "finished."  She  was 
studying  painting  and  music.  It  was  good  old 
Parker  Prout  who  taught  her  the  art  of  Nassau 
Street.  Somebody  once  said  of  Parker  Prout 
that  he  succeeded  as  a  teacher  because  he  also 
served  his  pupils  as  an  Awful  Example.  Prout 
came  twice  a  week,  and,  under  his  tuition,  the 
Midge  learned  to  paint  water-colors,  touching  in 
their  simplicity  of  composition  and  their  free  use 
of  the  primary  colors.  Her  skies  were  blue,  her 
trees  were  green  and  her  sun  was  yellow  when  it 
was  not  red ;  and  you  could  always  tell  just  where 
one  thing  left  off  and  another  began,  in  her  pic 
tures.  She  was  very  well  satisfied  with  them,  and 
so  was  the  Doctor.  He  said  they  indicated  the 
possession  of  a  cheerful  disposition. 

Other  twice  a  week  came  Professor  Max  Mann 
heim,  who  tortured  himself  into  paroxysms  of 
harmless  rage  in  trying  to  teach  her  to  play  the 
piano. 

"Du  lieber  Gott  in  Himmel!"  he  would  shriek: 
' '  Iss  dot  a  chordt  off  A  ?  W  'at  shall  you  do  if  you 
shall  not  sink?  I  do  not  esk  zet  you  hef  fing-erss 
— I  do  not  esk  zet  you  hef  arms — I  do  not  esk  zet 


THE  MIDGE  239 

you  hef  hentss — bot  play  mit  ze  kray  metier  off 
your  prain — only  once!  La,  la,  la!" — with  a 
staccato  hammering  of  three  of  the  piano  keys,  as 
though  he  had  the  obstinate  gray  matter  of  the 
Midge's  brain  under  his  wiry  fingers.  The 
Midge  herself  merely  smiled  on  him  in  amiable 
calm,  either  recognizing  in  all  this  a  form  of 
vehement  impatience,  or  accepting  it  as  something 
inseparable  from  the  inculcation  of  the  art  of 
music.  After  the  hour  of  turmoil  was  over,  they 
were  good  friends,  and  the  Professor  frequently 
took  her  to  afternoon  concerts,  where  Dr.  Peters 
could  not  have  been  dragged  with  ox-chains.  She 
liked  the  concerts  fairly  well,  especially  when  they 
ran  to  what  the  Professor  called  the  "tresh"  of 
Strauss  and  Waldteuf el  and  Abt. 

In  these  three  years  the  Midge  had  become  a 
sturdy  young  thing,  not  tall — that  she  never  would 
be — but  plump  and  mature  of  figure  for  a  girl  in 
her  sixteenth  year.  Nor  did  her  water-colors 
belie  her  disposition,  for  she  was  cheerful  and 
contented,  and  her  youthful  vivacity  was  appar 
ently  undimmed  by  any  consciousness  that  she  had 
no  friends  or  associates  under  forty  years  of  age. 

It  was  in  the  fourth  spring  of  her  stay  that  the 
Doctor  noticed  a  puzzling  change  in  her.  She 
began  to  moult,  as  he  put  it.  Her  health  was  excel 
lent;  but  there  was  a  marked  diminution  in  her 
usually  large  fund  of  energy  and  enthusiasm. 
She  seemed  to  lose  her  interest  in  their  long  walks, 
and  in  their  Sunday  rambles.  She  preferred  to  sit 
at  home  and  read,  or  at  least  she  said  she  did. 


240  THE  MIDGE 

After  a  while  he  noticed  that  when  she  had  a  book 
in  her  hand  she  was  not  always  reading. 

The  Doctor's  affectionate  diagnosis  of  the  case 
was  wholly  unsatisfactory.  He  felt  that  she  had 
something  on  her  mind;  but  delicate  questioning 
and  gentle  overtures  to  confidential  communion 
brought  him  no  nearer  to  finding  out  what  the 
something  was.  As  time  went  on,  she  became 
fickle  of  mood.  Sometimes  she  fairly  purred  in 
kitten-like  felicity.  And  the  next  day  she  would 
"moult"  again.  "I  know  the  world  is  hollow," 
thought  the  Doctor,  "but  she  can't  have  found  it 
out  yet.  That  comes  later." 

One  day  he  found  her  crying,  and  he  demanded 
an  explanation.  She  gave  him  none,  but  slipped 
silently  out  of  his  grasp  and  went  into  her  own 
room.  It  was  the  first  time  that  she  had  ever  been 
anything  but  gentle  and  submissive  to  him.  He 
refrained  from  following  her ;  but  he  made  up  his 
mind  that  radical  remedial  measures  were  in 
order ;  and  in  a  manner  it  eased  his  mind  to  reflect 
that  the  extravagance  of  this  manifestation  made 
it  almost  certain  that  there  was  a  physical  cause 
for  her  morbid  state  of  mind.  "Malaria,  I 
believe,"  he  pondered:  "I  suppose  that  means 
moving  up  town.  Something's  got  to  be  done,  and 
right  now.  She'd  never  act  in  that  way  if  she 
wasn't  sick.  Malaria,  for  certain.  I  presume 
I'd  have  had  it,  living  in  this  region,  if  I  ever  had 
anything — except  an  appetite." 

But  he  had  a  greater  shock  before  him  than  the 
discovery  of  malaria.  An  hour  later  the  Midge 


THE  MIDGE  241 

came  gravely  and  sadly  from  lier  room  and  stood 
in  front  of  him,  lifting  a  face  painfully  set  and  old 
for  a  child  of  sixteen. 

'  '  I  am  sorry  I  went  away  from  you  like  that, ' '  she 
said, gently.  l  'I  did  not  mean  to  be — not  nice.  But  I 
was  f  eelingvery  badly.  I  was  making  up  my  mind. J ' 

"Making  up  your  mind?"  he  repeated,  smiling. 

"Yes.    I  want  to  go  away." 

"To  go  away?    Where?" 

She  stood  with  her  hands  hanging  down  by  her 
sides,  and  her  figure  drooped  as  though  she  were 
tired. 

"I  do  not  know.  That  we  must  find  out.  Some 
place — some  asylum,  or  some  place  where  I  can 
do  some  work." 

"Midge!"   the   Doctor   cried,  "what   do   you 
mean?" 

She  threw  up  her  hands  with  a  nervous  gesture 
and  drew  a  quick  breath  of  pain. 

"No,  I  know  what  you  will  say!  But  I  can  not 
stay  here  more.  I  know  it — I  did  not  know  it 
once ;  but  I  know  it  now — it  is  all  wrong.  I  have 
no  right  to  be  here.  I  am  no  relation  to  you — I  am 
nobody  at  all.  You  have  just  found  me,  and  I 
have  made  you  take  care  of  me  because  you  are 
too  good  to  send  me  away.  I  have  been  selfish, 
and  I  have  taken  it  all;  but  I  knew  not  better 
when  I  came  here.  I  was  ignorant.  Now  I  know, 
and  I  will  be  selfish  no  longer.  I  will  go  away — 
no !  no ! — you  shall  not  tell  me  to  stay.  It  is  not 
right  that  I  stay.  You  must  let  me  go!" 

The  Doctor  had  a  fleeting  vision  of  the  room  as 


242  THE  MIDGE 

it  had  looked  on  the  night  when  the  Midge  first 
entered  it,  and  of  the  pitiful  little  form  in  the 
long  black  waterproof.  It  gave  him  a  shock  to 
connect  that  picture  with  the  girl  wrho  stood  now 
on  nearly  the  same  spot.  He  reached  out  and 
put  his  hands  on  her  shoulders,  though  at  first 
she  shrank  a  little  from  his  grasp. 

" Midge,"  he  said,  holding  her  firmly  and  speak 
ing  with  slow  decision,  "you  can  go  away  if  you 
want  to.  If  you  are  tired  of  living  here " 

"Ah!  no." 

"If  you  feel  that  you  have  got  to  go,  I  won't 
hinder  you.  You  can  do  as  you  please." 

Her  lips  closed  tightly,  and  her  face  grew  whiter. 

' '  But,  look  here !  I  want  you  to  understand  one 
thing.  You  may  go — but  if  you  go,  I  go  too.  Do 
you  understand  that?  Wherever  you  go,  I'm 
going  too — see?" 

A  queer  little  cry  came  from  her.  It  was  almost 
joyous,  yet  it  seemed  to  have  a  sob  behind  it. 

"My  dear  child,"  he  went  on,  holding  her 
tighter  as  she  shrunk  away,  "let's  settle  this  thing 
once  for  all.  You  don't  appear  to  know  that  you 
are  talking  right  down  wickedly.  What's  the  use 
of  telling  me  that  you  don't  belong  to  me?  You 
do!  What  could  I  do  without  you?  I  couldn't 
get  along — you  ought  to  know  that.  You  aren't 
under  any  obligations  to  me — I'm  under  obliga 
tions  to  you.  That's  the  way  it  stands.  Now, 
just  look  at  the  matter  reasonably.  I'm  an  old 
man " 

' l  You  are  not  an  old  man ! ' '  she  broke  in ;  "  I  will 


THE  MIDGE  243 

not  have  you  call  yourself  an  old  man.  You  are 
forty-four  years  and  seven  months  old.  That  is 
not  old!  That  is  nothing." 

"It's  something,  my  dear,"  he  said,  staring  into 
vacancy  over  her  head.  "I'm  too  old  to  make 
new  friends.  Now,  you're  my  best  friend.  You 
aren't  any  relation  of  mine — that's  true.  But 
you're  a  good  deal  more  to  me  than  any  relation  I 
ever  had,  and  I'm  going  to  hang  on  to  you  and 
keep  you  and  own  you,  do  you  grasp  that  fact? 
So  don't  you  ever  talk  again  about  leaving  me, 
unless  you  want  to  make  me  talk  to  you  pretty 
seriously.  You  hear  that  ? ' ' 

She  heard  it  in  silence.  He  took  her  on  his  lap 
and  set  to  work  to  reason  it  out.  He  told  her  that 
he  had  no  kindred  who  had  claims  upon  him,  that 
he  was  free  to  do  as  he  liked  with  his  own,  that  his 
income,  though  it  was  not  extravagantly  large,  was 
more  than  he  -could  ever  spend  upon  himself — 
more  than  sufficient  for  both  of. them.  She  lis 
tened,  and  yielded  gently,  almost  wearily.  There 
was  a  trace  of  something  like  humiliation  in  her 
manner,  however,  as  she  sat  with  bowed  head  and 
heard  him  patiently.  But  in  the  end  she  gave  the 
promise  he  required  of  her,  never  to  mention  the 
subject  again,  and  to  put  the  thought  out  of  her 
mind,  as  far  as  possible. 

When  this  was  done,  and  the  Doctor's  mind  was 
relieved,  he  wanted  to  go  on  with  a  few  further 
comments  and  reflections,  gathering  up  the  loose 
end  of  their  talk ;  but  she  showed  a  distinct  desire 
to  close  the  conversation,  and  left  her  place  upon 


244  THE  MIDGE 

his  knee  to  prepare  the  table  for  dinner,  for  the 
afternoon  was  passing  into  evening. 

Afterwards  she  went  to  her  room.  She  always 
made  some  pleasing  and  significant  change  in  her 
attire  for  the  evening  meal.  The  Doctor  was 
striding  up  and  down  the  room,  after  his  fashion, 
when  she  suddenly  emerged.  Her  listless,  fatigued 
manner  had  gone ;  she  was  tremulous,  tearful  and 
excited,  and  she  threw  herself  upon  him,  binding 
him  in  her  arms  with  a  violent  eagerness. 

"I  have  been  wrong,"  she  cried;  "yes,  I  have 
been  wrong  to  you.  I  have  been  ungrateful,  and  I 
have  pained  you.  I  did  not  mean  it.  I  do  not 
want  to  go  away  from  you.  I  will  never  go  away 
from  you  unless  you  want  me  to.  You  have  not 
understood  me.  I  have  been  wrong ;  but  you  have 
not  understood  me.  I  only  mean  to  do  what  you 
would  have  me.  Yes,  I  do  belong  to  you,  Evert,  I 
will  do  whatever  you  say,  now  and  always.  If  you 
ever  say  to  me  to  go,  I  will  go ;  and  if  you  say  to 
me  stay,  I  will  stay.  I  want  you  to  hear  me, 
Evert.  Always,  always,  always!  I  will  do  just 
what  you  say.  Always  I  will  do  just  what  yon 
want.  You  can  tell  me  nothing  that  I  will  not 
do — and  I  will  be  glad,  if  you  say  it.  Do  you 
know  that,  Evert  f" 

She  trembled  convulsively  as  she  clung  to  him, 
He  saw  that  she  was  agitated  beyond  the  limit  of 
her  qhildish  strength,  and  he  soothed  her  with  all 
possible  gentleness,  until  the  wild  excitement  gave 
place  to  unnerved  exhaustion,  and  she  let  herself 
be  petted  and  caressed  like  a  baby. 


THE  MIDGE  245 

He  scarcely  understood  it  all;  but  he  made 
certain  that  she  needed  fatherly  care  and  tonic 
medicines,  and  for  weeks  thereafter  she  had  both, 
administered  to  the  best  of  his  ability.  It  was 
some  time  before  the  treatment  showed  good 
effects ;  but  by  midsummer  he  saw  with  pride  that 
she  had  been  brought  back  to  sanity,  and  he  dis 
continued  the  use  of  the  tonic  medicines;  though 
he  relaxed  nothing  in  his  fatherly  care. 

They  went  out  of  town  a  good  deal  during  the 
summer,  making  little  trips  to  the  Catskills  and 
to  the  Jersey  coast,  spending  a  few  days  at  a  time 
in  these  airings.  He  did  not  feel  that  he  could 
afford  to  give  more,  for  he  had  got  to  work  upon 
the  sewing  machine  improvement;  and,  besides, 
he  was  always  needed  in  the  quarter — although  he 
was  not  called  upon  so  often  as  he  had  been  in 
earlier  days.  There  seemed  to  be  a  general 
understanding  among  the  poor  people  that  he  was 
now  a  man  of  family,  and  that  his  time  was  no 
longer  wholly  at  their  service.  Yet  he  went 
among  them  often,  and  sometimes,  now,  the  Midge 
went  with  him,  and  she  showed  a  creditable  readi 
ness  and  intelligence  as  a  nurse. 


They  had  a  way  of  dining  out,  once  in  a  while, 
to  break  the  monotony  of  a  long  succession  of 
household  repasts.  One  fine  day  in  November, 
filise  wanted  to  go  to  Hoboken,  to  the  christening 
of  her  cousin's  ninth  child,  and  they  were  glad  to 
let  her  off,  and  to  avail  themselves  of  the  excuse 


246  THE  MIDGE 

to  go  forth  and  take  their  dinner  in  a  restaurant. 

It  was  a  true  day  of  Indian  summer — summer 
surely  enough,  although  its  radiance  rested  on 
bare  trees  and  grass  out  of  which  the  life  had 
faded ;  and  though  the  cool  blue  of  the  higher  sky, 
and  the  soft  haze  on  the  horizon,  seen  down  the 
long  vista  of  the  city  street,  gave  no  suggestion  of 
summer's  sensuous  languors. 

The  day  before,  the  Midge  had  celebrated  her 
sixteenth  birthday,  and  they  agreed  to  regard  this 
dinner  as  an  extension  and  continuation  of  the 
celebration. 

It  was  a  modest  feast — only  a  plain  table-d'hote 
dinner,  eaten  in  the  heart  of  the  quarter,  at  a  cost 
of  half-a-dollar  apiece.  They  had  tried  more 
elaborate  dinners,  at  the  great  hotels  up-town ;  but 
they  preferred  the  simpler  joys  of  Charlemagne 's 
restaurant.  They  both  possessed  that  element  of 
Bohemianism  which  belongs  to  all  good  fellows — 
the  Midge  was  a  good  fellow,  as  well  as  the 
Doctor. 

Charlemagne's  is  a  thing  of  the  past;  but  he 
was  a  jolly  king  of  cheap  eating-house  keepers 
while  he  lasted.  He  gave  a  grand  and  whole 
some  dinner  for  fifty  cents.  The  first  items  were 
the  pot-au-feu  and  bouitti.  If  the  pot-au-feu  was 
thin,  the  bouilli  was  so  much  the  richer.  And 
if  the  bouilli  was  something  woodeny,  why,  you  had 
had  all  the  better  pot-au-feu  before  it.  Then  came 
an  entree — calves'  brains,  perhaps,  or  the  like;  a 
roti,  a  vegetable  or  two  coming  with  it;  a  good 
salad,  chicory  or  lettuce  or  plaintain,  a  dessert  of 


THE  MIDGE  247 

timely  fruits,  a  choice  of  excellent  cheese,  and  a  cup 
of  honest  black  coffee.  And  with  all  this  you  got 
bread  ad  libitum  and  a  half  bottle  of  drinkable 
wine,  that  had  never  paid  duty,  for  it  came  from 
California,  though  it  called  itself  Bordeaux.  And 
if  you  were  inclined  to  extravagant  luxury,  you 
might  respond  to  the  invitation  of  the  small 
placards  on  the  wall,  and  "Ask  for  the  Little 
Pot."  And,  having  asked  for  the  little  pot,  you 
got  a  tiny  china  cup,  shaped  like  a  pipkin,  which 
held  two  or  three  brandied  cherries,  steeping  in 
their  luscious  juice.  It  cost  you  ten  cents  more, 
and  it  gave  a  dollar's  worth  of  flavor  to  your  demi- 
tasse  of  coffee 

It  was  not  aristocratic,  M.  Charlemagne's  little 
place  in  Houston  Street;  the  table-cloths  were 
coarser  than  the  wrappings  of  Egyptian  mum 
mies  ;  there  was  little  to  show  that  the  spoons  and 
forks  had  ever  been  plated;  there  was  no  cere 
mony  among  the  diners,  and  shirt-sleeves  were 
always  en  regie.  And  the  great  bowl  of  soup  was 
passed  around  that  every  guest  might  help  him 
self,  much  as  it  might  have  been  done  in  the  time 
of  the  proprietor's  namesake.  But  everything 
was  clean,  and  all  things  were  decent  and  well- 
ordered  within  that  respectable  resort.  Poor 
French  clerks  and  saving  French  tradesmen 
mostly  frequented  it.  Now  and  then  there  was 
a  table-full  of  newspaper  men,  actors,  artists  and 
unclassified  Bohemians,  who  atoned  for  their 
uncontrollable  noisiness  by  amusing  all  the  graver 
patrons  of  the  house  with  their  ready  mirth  and 


248  THE  MIDGE 

ephemeral  wit,  always  generously  loud  enough  to 
be  at  the  service  of  the  whole  room. 

Madame  Charlemagne,  holding  the  pot-au-feu 
breast-high,  hailed  the  Doctor  and  the  Midge  as 
they  entered,  and  called  upon  M.  Charlemagne  to 
find  seats  for  them. 

M.  Charlemagne,  rotund  and  jovial,  with  the 
air  of  a  comic  cook  in  an  opera  bouffe,  showed 
them  to  a  little  table  between  the  fireplace  and 
the  window. 

There  was  one  other  person  already  at  the 
table — a  young  man.  Looking  up  after  his  soup, 
it  struck  the  Doctor  that  he  had  seen  the  young 
man  before,  somewhere.  He  had  only  a  vague 
sense  of  knowing  the  broad  shoulders,  the  bright 
young  face  and  the  moustache  that  was  still  as 
small  as  anything  can  be  that  has  a  right  to  be 
called  a  moustache.  The  young  man,  with  the 
color  of  confusion  in  his  cheeks,  directed  toward 
the  Doctor  a  smile  of  recognition,  and  toward  the 
Doctor's  companion  a  look  of  awkward  apology. 
Dr.  Peters  felt  sure  he  had  seen  him  before.  He 
would  have  contented  himself  with  a  nod  in 
acknowledgment;  but  the  ingenuous  embarrass 
ment  in  the  young  face  appealed  to  his  sympathy. 

"I  think  IVe  met  you  before "  he  began, 

doubtfully. 

"Oh,  yes,  in — that  is,  I  think  so — don't  you 
remember?  One  afternoon,  two  or  three  years 
ago — you  were  buying  French  books — for  a  young 
lady."  He  added  this  last  clause  with  impulsive 
eagerness,  and  then  blushed  furiously. 


THE  MIDGE  249 

'  '  Oh,  yes, ' '  said  the  Doctor.  l  '  I  remember  now. 
In  the  navy,  eh  ?  But  your  name  has  slipped  me. ' ' 

"  Hathaway, "  returned  the  young  man, 
promptly;  "Paul  Hathaway.  That  was  just 
before  I  sailed  for  South  America.  We  had  quite 
a  talk  together,  don't  you  recollect." 

"Why,  yes,"  said  the  Doctor,  beginning  to 
recall  some  of  the  results  of  that  talk,  in  the  way 
of  purchase  of  French  literature. 

"I  hope,"  the  young  man  boldly  pushed  on,  "I 
hope  you  liked  the  books  you  bought.  Were  they 
what  you  wanted?" 

He  glanced  furtively  at  the  Midge,  who  was 
eating  her  bouilli  very  daintily,  and  utterly  ignor 
ing  his  presence. 

"Well,  no,"  the  Doctor  responded,  slowly,  a 
smile  curling  the  corners  of  his  mouth;  "I  can't 
just  say  they  were,  exactly — not  all  of  them." 

"Weren't  they — weren't  they  satisfactory  to 
the  young  lady?" 

He  was  fiery  red  in  the  face  with  this;  but  the 
Doctor  did  not  notice  it,  seemingly.  His  smile  of 
amusement  grew  broader. 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  he  said;  "I  didn't 
hear  her  say  anything  much  about  them — but 
maybe  she  can  tell  you  better  for  herself.  This  is 
the  young  lady." 

He  indicated  the  Midge.  It  was  rather  comic 
to  him  to  think  that  the  child  for  whom  he  had 
bought  novels  three  years  before,  was  now  so  near 
to  being  indeed  a  young  lady.  He  saw  that  he 
must  introduce  Mr.  Hathaway  to  the  Midge,  and 


250  THE  MIDGE 

he  smiled  again  as  he  fitted  her  rarely  used 
patronymic  to  his  simple  formula  of  introduction. 

"Mr. — Mr. — Hathaway,  isn't  it? — this  is  Miss 
Talbot,  who  wanted  the  books." 

It  amused  him  to  think  of  the  Midge  as  Miss 
Talbot.  But  if  he  took  the  formality  somewhat 
lightly,  the  Midge  made  up  for  it  by  the  dignity 
with  which  she  received  the  intimation  of  Mr. 
Hathaway 's  existence.  She  smiled  condescend 
ingly,  as  she  ate  her  bouilli,  and  listened  to  the 
young  man's  remarks  on  French  literature. 

Mr.  Hathaway  was  frankly  talkative.  From 
French  literature  he  skipped  to  talking  about  him 
self,  and  he  had  much  interesting  information  to 
impart  concerning  his  three  years'  cruise  in  the 
tropics.  He  had  been  at  Valparaiso  a  long  time, 
and  he  described  Valparaiso  with  enthusiastic 
admiration.  Valparaiso  led  him  to  talk  about 
Paris,  and  that  brought  the  Midge  out,  and  the 
Doctor  was  able  to  withdraw  from  the  conversa 
tion  and  devote  himself  to  his  dinner,  while  the 
younger  people  chatted  of  Europe  and  European 
ways.  To  hear  the  Midge  talk,  you  would  have 
thought  that  she  had  been  a  fashionable  tourist 
with  many  years'  experience  of  the  Continent. 

Incidentally,  it  came  out  that  Mr.  Hathaway 
was  at  home  on  sick-leave.  He  had  been  hurt  in 
the  course  of  some  gun-practice  at  Newport,  early 
that  summer.  The  Midge  had  thawed,  by  this 
time,  and  she  gave  his  sufferings  the  tribute  of  a 
dainty  little  "Oh!" — which  expression  of  sym 
pathy  he  manfully  disclaimed.  He  had  not  been 


THE  MIDGE  251 

hurt  much,  he  explained ;  it  was  really  nothing  at 
all — only  a  game  leg  for  a  few  weeks — and  he  was 
all  right  now.  Oh,  yes,  he  was  all  right — only 
the  day  before  yesterday  he  had  taken  a  twenty 
mile  walk,  to  get  a  little  sketching,  along  the 
Bronx. 

The  Midge  called  the  Doctor's  attention  to  this 
fact.  They,  too,  had  recently  been  wandering 
along  the  tortuous  course  of  the  river  Bronx.  It 
was  an  interesting  coincidence.  And  she  also  told 
the  Doctor  that  Mr.  Hathaway  had  been  engaged  in 
gun-practice.  She  drew  his  notice  to  this  with  a 
proud  sense  of  safety,  for  she  knew  that  he  was 
wholly  weaned  from  his  old  schemes  of  blood 
thirsty  invention. 

Dr.  Peters  heard  her  remarks  rather  absent- 
mindedly.  He  had  been  thinking  while  the  other 
two  talked.  He  thought  that  Mr.  Hathaway  was  a 
very  kindly  young  man,  to  be  willing  to  spend  so 
much  time  on  a  child.  And  he  saw  that  the  Midge 
was  enjoying  the  conversation..  She  was  posi 
tively  vivacious — brighter  than  he  had  seen  her  in 
some  time.  She  had  never  quite  recovered  her 
high  spirits  since  her  sickness  in  the  spring.  Now 
her  eyes  sparkled,  and  she  ran  on  so  fluently  that 
he  was  afraid  she  would  bore  her  new  acquaint 
ance.  It  struck  him,  for  the  first  time,  that  she 
did  not  see  enough  of  young  people.  Hathaway, 
of  course,  was  too  old  for  her ;  but  if  he  was  con 
siderate  enough  to  talk  with  her,  and  if  it  did  her 
good — why,  where  would  be  the  harm  in  asking 
him  to  come  and  see  them,  once  in  a  while?  It 


252  THE  MIDGE 

would  be  a  change  for  the  Midge — perhaps  for 
him,  too. 

He  asked  Mr.  Hathaway  to  call.  Mr.  Hatha 
way  said  he  would,  and  when  they  left  the  res 
taurant,  he  walked  with  them  to  their  door,  so 
that  he  might  not  forget  their  number. 

Two  days  later,  he  called.  He  made  himself 
very  entertaining,  and  when  he  told  of  his  long  and 
lonely  sketching-tramps,  the  doctor  invited  him 
to  join  their  expedition  for  the  next  Sunday.  He 
accepted  the  invitation  with  agreeable  readiness. 

After  he  had  gone,  the  Doctor  felt  that  his  act 
had  been  somewhat  impulsive. 

"I  ought  to  have  asked  you  first,  Midge, 
whether  you  wanted  to  have  him  go.  I  was  rather 
thoughtless,  I  guess.  How  do  you  feel  about  it? 
I  won't  do  it  again  unless  you  say  so." 

The  Midge  raised  her  eyebrows  and  let  them  fall 
in  a  doubtful  frown. 

"  Just  you  and  I — that  is  what  I  like  best,  Evert. 
But  if  you  think  he  will  be  pleasant — it  is  for  you 
to  say.  You  like  him? — you  think  he  is  nice?" 

"Why,  yes;  he  seems  a  straightforward,  honest 
sort  of  fellow.  Don't  think  so?" 

"I  do  not  know."  She  shrugged  her  shoulders 
as  she  looked  in  the  glass  and  adjusted  her  hair. 
"It  is  too  soon  to  say." 

The  next  Sunday  was  fine,  and  they  went  to  Fort 
Hamilton,  the  three  of  them.  Down  there,  the  sea 
breezes  had  kept  the  grass  green,  and  had  left  a 
few  leaves  on  the  trees.  They  wandered  along 
the  bluff,  and  admired  the  English  beauty  of  Clif- 


THE  MIDGE  253 

ton  spire,  nestling  against  the  Staten  Island  hills 
opposite.  They  went  up  to  the  Fort,  and  saw  the 
place  where  the  Doctor 's  gun  had  been  tried ;  and 
the  Doctor  told  the  story  of  the  failure,  with 
humor  chastened  by  retrospection.  Mr.  Hatha 
way  informed  them  as  to  the  rig  of  the  craft  at 
anchor  in  the  Narrows  and  up  the  bay,  and  spoke 
of  foreign  ports  which  he  had  seen.  They  had  a 
good  early  dinner,  which  they  ate  in  a  jovial  frame 
of  mind,  at  the  queer  old  half -inn  half -boarding- 
house  under  the  bluff ;  and  a  little  before  seven 
o  'clock  they  took  the  rattling,  swaying  dummy  for 
Brooklyn,  and  were  at  home  in  gas-lit  New  York 
just  as  the  church  bells  began  to  ring  for  evening 
service. 

"Well,  Midge,"  said  the  Doctor,  later  in  the 
evening,  "how  was  it?  Shall  I  ask  him  again?" 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"I  do  not  want  to  say,  Evert.  You  must  do  as 
you  please.  It  is  nothing  to  me.  But  you  have 
not  said  anything  about  my  hair. ' ' 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  say  about  your  hair? 
Your  hair's  all  right — oh,  I  see!  What  has 
become  of  the  pig-tails?" 

"They  are  not  the  fashion  now.  Don't  you 
think  this  way  is  more  pretty?" 


XI 

IF  it  had  been  left  to  the  Doctor  to  say  whether 
or  no  Mr.  Paul  Hathaway  should  be  encour 
aged  to  continue  his  visits,  the  chilly  indiffer 
ence  displayed  by  the  Midge  might  have  settled 
the  question  in  the  negative.  But  it  was  not  left 
to  the  Doctor.  Mr.  Hathaway  took  the  matter 
into  his  own  hands.  He  had  received  one  invita 
tion,  and  he  needed  no  more.  He  simply  came, 
and  continued  to  come,  and  as  he  was  thoroughly 
agreeable,  and  as  they  always  enjoyed  his  visits, 
there  seemed  to  be  no  reason  why  he  should  do 
otherwise. 

The  exigencies  of  social  intercourse  demand 
that  we  should  know  who  our  friends  are,  and 
whence  they  come.  Mr.  Hathaway  supplied  all 
the  necessary  data  in  his  case.  He  was  frank  and 
open,  and  when  he  talked  about  himself,  it  was 
with  the  indifferent  ease  with  which  he  might  have 
discoursed  on  the  peculiarities  of  the  port  of  Rio 
Janeiro.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Pennsylvania 
clergyman,  who  had  been  also  a  school  teacher. 
His  parents  were  dead,  the  uncle  who  had  brought 
him  up  was  dead;  he  had  passed  his  boyhood  on 
the  school-ship,  and  he  was  now  in  the  navy.  That 
was  all  his  story.  As  he  put  it,  he  was  a  regular 
out-and-out,  thoroughgoing,  plain,  unvarnished 

254 


THE  MIDGE  255 

waif.  Nobody  owned  him,  and  nobody  seemed 
anxious  to  take  possession  of  him.  He  had  no 
prospects  of  promotion  in  the  navy,  and  he  was  as 
tired  of  it  as  a  man  could  be  at  twenty-three.  He 
had  wanted  to  exchange  into  the  army,  because 
there  he  would  have  more  leisure,  and  more  time 
for  sketching.  Sketching  was  about  the  best  fun 
he  knew.  Of  course,  he  couldn't  really  do  any 
thing  at  it ;  but,  still,  it  was  fun.  Only  he  saw  no 
prospect  of  getting  into  the  army.  Lieutenancies 
were  not  lying  around  loose.  He  supposed  he 
would  have  to  go  back  to  the  Wequetequock,  when 
his  sick  leave  expired.  And  perhaps  it  was  all  he 
was  good  for,  after  all.  Certainly  the  Peters 
household  would  be  tired  of  him  by  that  time.  Oh, 
it  was  very  kind  of  them  to  say  that  they  wouldn't ; 
but  they  hadn't  tried  it  yet.  They  would  have 
two  months  more  of  him. 

In  the  first  of  their  acquaintance,  when  he  had 
heard  that  the  Midge  painted  in  water-colors,  he 
had  promised  to  bring  his  sketches  around  to  show 
her.  On  his  first  visit  she  exhibited  her  own 
works,  and  reminded  him  of  his  promise;  but 
somehow  or  other,  from  day  to  day  he  forgot  to 
produce  the  pictures.  It  was  only  on  the  friendly 
insistence  of  the  Doctor  that  he  finally  brought  a 
package  of  sketches  for  their  inspection.  And 
immediately  afterward  the  Midge's  portfolio  dis 
appeared  from  the  sitting-room. 

Mr.  Hathaway 's  modesty  had  over-served  him 
in  this  instance.  He  drew  uncommonly  well,  and 
his  work  had  that  quality  of  confidence  and  spirit 


256  THE  MIDGE 

which  picture  dealers  and  some  art-critics  call 
chic.  The  next  afternoon  that  he  looked  in  at  the 
Peters  establishment — he  had  got  to  "looking  in" 
by  this  time — the  Midge  was  painting,  and  much  to 
his  embarrassment,  and  against  his  will,  he  found 
himself  gently  but  firmly  placed  in  the  position  of 
a  superior  critic  and  adviser — a  sort  of  amateur 
teacher,  in  fact. 

This  initial  introduction  of  a  visitor  into  the 
family  accomplished  itself  without  friction  and 
with  pleasant  results.  The  Doctor  saw  that  their 
previous  "twofold  solitude"  had  been  a  mistake. 
He  began  to  ask  people  to  come  to  see  them.  He 
knew  but  few  who  were  desirable  as  familiar  asso 
ciates,  and  there  were  none  of  them  very  young  or 
very  entertaining;  but  he  did  his  best  with  these 
few.  He  got  Parker  Prout  and  Professor  Mann 
heim  to  drop  in  of  an  evening,  and  when  they  took 
kindly  to  the  idea,  as  they  did  after  a  first  trial,  he 
was  surprised  to  see  how  much  more  there  was  in 
them  than  came  out  in  their  professional  hours,  or 
even  in  their  time  of  recreation  at  the  Brasserie 
Pigault,  where  he  had  first  met  them.  Father 
Dube,  too,  was  willing  to  give  them  an  evening 
from  time  to  time,  and  he  taught  the  Midge  to  play 
dominoes.  The  Doctor  seriously  reproached  him 
self  that  he  had  not  thought  to  instruct  her  in  that 
innocent  and  mildly  exciting  game.  But  then  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  had  neglected  the  Midge  in 
various  ways.  There  were  possibilities  in  life 
with  which  he  had  done  nothing  to  make  her 
familiar.  He  had  not  noticed  her  growth,  or  the 


THE  MIDGE  257 

fact  that  his  own  world  was  somewhat  narrow  for 
her. 

This  was  borne  in  upon  Dr.  Peters  when  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  loomed  up  as  one  of  the  possi 
bilities  of  life.  He  was  invited  one  night  to  play 
whist  with  Parker  Prout,  Professor  Mannheim 
and  the  Doctor.  The  Midge  abhorred  whist,  and 
so  Paul  Hathaway  kept  her  company  in  a  far  cor 
ner  while  the  game  went  on.  Mr.  Pratt  played 
whist,  not  because  he  liked  it,  but  because  he  con 
sidered  it  one  of  the  approved  and  accepted  forms 
of  amusement  which  it  was  his  duty,  as  a  clergy 
man  of  the  Church  of  England,  to  encourage.  He 
passed  a  jovial  evening,  for  him.  He  drank  a 
glass  of  sherry  and  ginger-ale;  although,  as  he 
observed,  the  use  of  strong  liquor  did  not  agree 
with  him. 

Presumably,  however,  he  did  not  suffer  from 
remorse  or  indigestion  on  the  morrow,  for  he 
began  to  pay  frequent  calls,  and  showed  an 
amiable  interest  in  the  welfare  of  Dr.  Peters  and 
Miss  Talbot. 

"Miss  Talbot"  she  did  not  remain  long  to  any 
of  the  little  group.  Her  father's  name  had  long 
been  unfamiliar  to  her  own  ears,  and  she  did  not 
seem  inclined  to  insist  upon  her  right  to  it.  The 
Doctor  and  Prout  called  her  " Midge' ';  Mann 
heim  hailed  her  as  "Mitsh,"  which  was  as  near  as 
he  could  come  to  it ;  and  the  two  younger  men  had 
to  find  more  suitably  respectful  modes  of  address. 
Mr.  Pratt  selected  "Miss  Lodoiska,"  without 
sparing  one  syllable,  and  Hathaway  called  her 


258  THE  MIDGE 

"Miss  Lois."  This  was  a  bold  and  original 
device,  and  he  had  the  name  to  himself. 

From  the  time  that  he  first  heard  her  called 
"Miss  Lodoiska,"  the  Doctor  became  conscious 
of  a  new  discomfort.  He  had  to  recognize  not 
only  the  fact  that  she  was  "Miss"  Lodoiska,  but 
the  fact  that  others  recognized  that  fact. 

The  Reverend  Theodore  Beatty  Pratt  recog 
nized  it.  Before  he  had  been  long  a  visitor  in  that 
top  floor  on  Washington  Square,  he  became  aware, 
to  some  extent,  of  the  deficiencies  in  her  religious 
education.  He  never  grasped  the  whole  hideous 
truth,  but  he  learned  enough  to  make  him  deeply 
concerned  for  her.  He  tried  to  get  her  to  teach  a 
class  in  the  Sunday-school,  by  way  of  making  up 
for  what  she  herself  should  have  been  taught,  and, 
failing  in  this,  he  asked  her  to  read  a  few  books 
which  he  desired  to  select  for  her.  She  did  not 
refuse,  and  he  brought  the  books,  and  came  from 
time  to  time  to  talk  them  over  with  her.  He  did 
nearly  all  the  talking  himself;  but  then  his  opinions 
were  unimpeachably  correct. 

If  it  had  begun  and  ended  with  tne  books,  the 
Doctor  would  have  been  well  pleased.  But  the 
books  were  only  a  small  part  of  it.  Mr.  Pratt 's 
communications  stretched  out  into  expansions  of 
personality,  and  confidences.  He  told  the  Midge 
of  his  private  hopes  and  ambitions.  He  told  her 
of  his  early  life  in  a  small  Ohio  village,  of  the 
struggles  of  his  youth,  of  the  sacrifices  which  his 
mother  had  made  to  send  him  to  college,  of  the 


THE  MIDGE  259 

pride  with  which  she  looked  upon  his  present 
position.  And,  worst  of  all,  he  told  Miss  Lodoiska 
of  his  first  and  only  love-affair  and  its  unfortunate 
ending. 

The  Doctor  knew  more  or  less  of  this,  and  he 
was  displeased  and  disturbed.  He  thought  that 
Pratt  was  very  wrong  to  talk  so  to  a  girl  of  the 
Midge's  age.  And  even  if  she  was  not  quite  a 
child — and  he  was  willing  to  admit  that  she  had 
got  beyond  the  point  where  she  could  be  called  a 
child  and  nothing  more — she  was  certainly  not  old 
enough  for  that  sort  of  thing.  Pratt  was  old 
enough,  himself,  to  know  better.  And  he  was 
young  enough  to  make  his  indiscretion  possibly 
dangerous.  And  the  Doctor  was  displeased  with 
the  Midge  for  listening  to  such  talk.  Why  she 
wanted  to  listen  to  Pratt  at  all,  he  could  not  under 
stand.  But  she  certainly  did  listen. 

The  Doctor  knew  little  of  social  diplomacy.  He 
had  tact  and  diplomacy  in  dealing  with  the  poor 
and  miserable;  but  he  felt  himself  at  a  loss  in  a 
matter  like  this.  He  gave  Mr.  Pratt  two  or  three 
hints  so  broad  that  no  man  free  from  an  absolutely 
guilty  conscience  could  have  understood  them ;  and 
he  made  some  disparaging  remarks  about  Pratt  to 
the  Midge.  These  she  received  in  silence,  which 
was  the  only  way  she  ever  expressed  disapproval 
of  anything  he  did.  This  annoyed  and  perplexed 
him  more  than  he  would  have  been  willing  to  con 
fess  to  himself.  And  so  it  came  about  that 
there  grew  up  a  misunderstanding — undefined, 


260  THE  MIDGE 

unavowed ;  but  a  misunderstanding — between  him 
self  and  her;  and  their  life  was  not  just  what  it 
had  been  before. 

The  Doctor  was  greatly  relieved  when  he 
learned  that  Mr.  Pratt  was  about  to  leave  New 
York.  There  was  to  be  a  change  in  the  manage 
ment  of  the  mission.  Mr.  Pratt 's  charge  had  been 
only  temporary  in  its  nature,  though  he  had  held  it 
for  some  years ;  and  he  had  not  been  successful  in 
his  labors.  The  trustees  were  dissatisfied,  and  he 
himself  felt  that  he  was  out  of  place.  So  he  had 
accepted  a  call  to  a  church  in  Ohio,  near  his  native 
place.  He  was  very  thankful  for  the  call,  and 
very  glad  of  the  prospect  of  having  a  church  of  his 
own.  And  he  could  see  his  mother,  from  time  to 
time,  by  driving  twenty-five  miles.  He  never 
thought  to  inquire  whether  the  dissatisfaction  of 
the  trustees  of  the  mission  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  procurement  of  the  call.  He  only  knew  that  he 
was  called  to  a  field  of  labor  for  which  he  felt 
himself  better  suited. 

He  came  one  afternoon  to  bid  the  Midge  good 
bye.  He  brought  her  several  books  which  he 
wanted  her  to  read.  He  spoke  of  his  prospects 
and  of  what  he  hoped  to  accomplish.  He  told  her 
he  wished  he  had  been  able  to  be  of  more  service 
to  her,  as  a  spiritual  guide,  than  he  had  been,  and 
when  he  rose  to  go  he  stood  for  a  moment  or  two 
limply  shaking  her  hand. 

"I  suppose, "  he  said,  "it  doesn't  seem  very 
attractive  to  you,  the  idea  of  living  in  a  little 
country  village,  away  out  in  Ohio?" 


THE  MIDGE  261 

"No,"  she  answered  frankly,  "it  must  be  a 
bore.  I  hope  you  will  like  it  better  than  I  should. 
It  must  be  a  great  bore. ' ' 

' '  There  is  so  much  to  be  done, ' '  he  said. 

'  '  Well,  I  hope  you  will  do  it.  It  is  nice  of  you  to 
go,  you  know.  Yes,"  she  added,  reflectively,  "I 
am  sure  it  is  nice  of  you  to  go. ' ' 

He  looked  hard  at  her,  and  then  turned  away, 
and,  saying  "Good-bye,"  went  down  the  stairs. 
He  was  a  poor  little  fellow,  poor  of  intellect,  poor 
of  soul;  but  he  was  man  enough  to  read  and 
respect  the  high  unconsciousness  of  her  maiden 
eyes. 


When  the  Doctor  came  home  that  evening  —  he 
had  been  out  buying  tools  for  his  sewing-machine 
model-making  —  the  Midge  greeted  him  with  a 
rapturous  smile,  such  as  she  had  not  given  him  in 
weeks. 

"Oh,  Evert,"  she  said,  "Mr.  Pratt  has  gone." 

"Well?"  returned  the  Doctor,  rather  unsympa- 
thetically. 

"I'm  so  glad!" 


"Why,  of  course." 

"Well,  I  don't  see  precisely  why  'of  course.' 
I  thought  you  had  been  pretty  thick  of  late,  you 
two." 

"Oh,  I  had  to  be  polite  to  him,  you  know.  I 
did  dislike  him  so." 

"Your  logic  beats  me,  Midge,"  said  the  Doctor, 


262  THE  MIDGE 

with  an  uneasy  smile.  "If  you  didn't  like  him, 
why  didn't  you  show  it?" 

" Don't  you  understand?"  she  asked,  looking  at 
him  in  mild  surprise.  "I  did  not  want  to  be 
unjust,  any  more  than  you  would." 

The  Doctor  pondered. 

"Well,  I  suppose  there  is  something  in  that." 

"Of  course — don't  you  see?  And  he  would 
come  to  me  and  tell  me  all  about  his  mother,  and 
how  she  has  had  meat  only  once  a  week,  so  that 
he  might  go  to  college  and  be  a  clergyman.  And 
I  was  very  sorry  for  his  mother,  and  it  was  very 
nice  of  her — but  you  have  no  idea,  Evert,  how  he 
has  bored  me." 

The  Doctor 's  brows  were  wrinkled. 

"I  thought  you  were  interested  in  his  conversa 
tion." 

"Interested!    But  it  was  a  bore — oh,  a  lore." 

"You  managed  to  conceal  it  pretty  well,"  he 
observed,  grimly. 

She  gave  him  a  surprised  look,  and  then  her 
face  changed.  She  went  swiftly  to  him  and 
touched  him  on  the  shoulder.  He  had  been  look 
ing  gloomily  out  of  the  window,  and  he  turned 
toward  her. 

"Evert!  you  have  not  thought — I  liked  that 
man?" 

"Why,"  be  began,  uncomfortably,  "I  thought 
you  seemed  to  have  taken  a  sort  of  fancy  to  his 
society " 

"Oh,  Evert!" 

"I'm  not  finding  fault,  my  dear.    You've  a 


THE  MIDGE  263 

right    to    choose    your    own    friends,    and " 

"But  I  could  never  have  him  for  a  friend! 
How  could  you  have  thought  that?  Why,  Evert, 
he  was  not  nice  at  all.  You  did  not  like  him  your 
self  ,  did  you  ? " 

"I  didn't  like  him — no,  not  exactly.  I  won't 
say  I  disliked  him,  though.  He  was  a  good 
enough  little  fellow,  I  suppose/' 

"Good!  I  am  not  so  sure  he  was  good.  That 
is  as  you  look  at  it.  I  should  not  want  to  have  you 
good  like  that.  Why,  Evert,  do  you  know,  he  was 
engaged  to  a  girl  out  there,  and  when  he  found 
that  if  he  married  her  he  could  not  afford  to  study 
and  be  a  clergyman,  he  has  gone  to  her  and  broken 
it  off?  What  do  you  think  of  that?" 

The  Doctor  smiled  with  more  mirthfulness  than 
before. 

"That's  his  own  business,  my  dear — his  and 
the  young  woman's." 

"But  he  has  gone  to  her  and  told  her  about  it, 
and  how  he  had  to  choose  between  her  and  be 
ing  a  clergyman,  and  they  have  prayed  together, 
and  he  has  made  her  think  the  way  he  did,  and 
she  has  let  him  go.  For  me,  I  think  it  was  a 
shame.  I  think  it  was  cruel — and  I  have  told 
him  so." 

The  Doctor  laughed  outright  this  time. 

"Well,  just  there  I  think  you  exceeded  your 
duty,  Midge.  That  was  a  question  of  morals 
that  it  isn't  for  us  to  pass  on.  And  it  seems  that 
the  young  woman  consented." 


264  THE  MIDGE 

*  '  That  was  because  she  was  a  woman.     But  she 
was  not  young.     She  was  thirty. ' ' 

"Then  she  was  old  enough  to  know  her  own 
mind." 

"But  would  you  have  done  such  a  thing?" 
demanded  the  Midge,  indignantly:  "would  you 
give  up  a  woman  you  have  loved,  for  anything 
— for  anything  in  the  world?  I  think  it  is 
wicked!" 

"I'm  not  speaking  for  myself,  Midge.  But  I'm 
not  running  Mr.  Pratt 's  conscience.  I  dare  say  he 
thought  it  was  right,  or  he  wouldn't  have  done 
it." 

*  '  He  thought  it  was  right — maybe.    But  he  ought 
not  to  have  thought  it  was  right.     You  know  it  was 
wrong,  Evert ;  and  you  would  never  have  told  me 
to  do  such  a  thing.     Only  you  are  so  good  to  other 
people,  you  will  never  say  they  are  wrong.    But 
now  do  you  see  why  I  disliked  him?" 

"You  don't  seem  to  have  approved  of  him,  for 
a  fact,"  said  the  Doctor,  putting  his  arm  around 
her. 

"And  don't  you  see  why  I  had  to  be  nice  to  him? 
For  he  thought  he  was  right,  and  that  was  what 
made  it  so — disgusting.  Don't  you  understand 
why  I  let  him  talk  to  me,  Evert?"  she  pressed, 
nestling  up  to  him. 

"Because  you  are  a  woman?"  suggested  the 
Doctor,  laughing. 

"Ah,  now  you  are  making  fun  of  me,"  she  said, 
smiling  herself  as  she  slipped  out  of  his  arm. 


THE  MIDGE  265 

"And  I  have  to  set  the  table  for  dinner.  See — it 
is  ten  minutes  of  six.  You  must  go  and  get  your 
self  ready;  and  I  have  not  changed  my  dress. 
Only  do  not  ever  tell  me  again  that  he  could  be 
my  friend." 


XII 

THE  January  wind  blew  in  through  the  open 
front  door  of  the  old  house  on  Washington 
Square,  and  brought  a  smell  of  cooking  up 
to  Dr.  Peters 's  top  floor,  one  morning  shortly  after 
New  Year's.  Most  of  the  smell  proceeded  from 
the  lower  regions ;  but  some  of  it  was  an  importa 
tion,  a  separate  smell  hanging  around  a  tousled, 
smudgy,  hunted-looking  little  boy,  who  did  not 
need  a  label  to  tell  the  experienced  eye  that  he  was 
the  male  "slavey"  of  a  New  York  boarding-house 
of  the  third  or  fourth  class.  It  is  not  every  cheap 
boarding-house  that  has  such  an  attendant  on  its 
domestic  staff;  but  those  that  do  keep  him  in  use 
as  boots,  scullion,  errand-boy,  and  in  several  other 
capacities,  and  he  is  just  such  a  soiled  and  harried 
creature  as  stood  before  Dr.  Peters  that  sharp 
morning,  rubbing  his  blue  nose  with  the  sleeve  of 
his  thin  jacket. 

"The  gen'Pm'n  said  to  give  it  to  you  very  per- 
tickler,"  he  said,  in  one  breath. 

The  note  which  he  handed  to  the  Doctor  read 
thus: 

"DEAR  DR.  PETERS — Can  I  see  you  at  once,  and  privately? 
I  am  in  no  end  of  trouble.  I  will  meet  you  anywhere  you  say — 
but  I  don 't  want  to  have  any  one  know  it. 

"In  haste,  yours, 

"PAUL  HATHAWAY." 
266 


THE  MIDGE  267 

The  Doctor  sent  a  line  in  reply :  '  *  Come  here  in 
half-an-hour — we  shall  be  alone, "  and  the  boy 
went  down  stairs  three  steps  at  a  time  tossing  a 
coin  into  the  air  and  singing  a  paean  of  his  own  to 
an  air  of  the  day : 

"O-o-oh!  dat  dime  he  gimme, 
O-o-oh  dat  dime  he  gimme, 

Good  old  chump  wid  a  must  ash  on — 
Golden  slippers  in  de  mawn ! ' ' 

The  Doctor  listened,  smiled,  half-sighed,  and 
smiled  again.  Then  he  turned  from  the  door,  and 
faced  the  Midge,  dressed  to  go  out  for  her  house 
hold  shopping.  She  had  long  been  considered 
" equal  to  the  exigencies  of  the  situation." 

She  was  very  pretty  to  look  at,  and  rather  patri 
cian,  in  her  way,  as  she  stood,  erect  and  graceful, 
in  her  trim  seal-skin  sacque,  a  neat,  Frenchy  bon 
net  on  her  small,  shapely,  well-poised  head. 

"I  shall  not  be  long,  Evert,"  she  said. 

"Well,"  he  suggested,  "you  needn't  hurry 
home  this  morning. ' 9 

She  showed  her  white,  even  little  teeth  in  a  mis 
chievous  smile. 

"Oh,  you  are  tired  of  my  society!" 

"Not  exactly  tired,  Midge — only  a  little 
fatigued,  so  to  speak.  No,  dear — there's  some 
body  coming  here  on  business.  And  if  you  want  to 
take  the  opportunity  to  call  on  your  dressmaker 
and  see  if  there  aren't  some  new  duds  that  you 
absolutely  don't  need — why,  you've  got  a  good 
excuse." 


268  THE  MIDGE 

"Ah,  no!"  she  persisted,  maliciously:  "You 
cannot  deceive  me.  You  want  to  get  rid  of  me. 
Very  well,  I  will  stay  out  until  you  are  anxious  to 
have  me  back,  and  put  an  advertisement  in  the 
papers — *  Midge:  Return  to  your  penitent  Evert. 
I  will  never  turn  you  out  again — E.  P.'  " 

As  might  have  been  expected,  to  a  young  woman 
of  the  Midge's  sense  of  humor,  the  "personal" 
columns  of  a  well-known  morning  paper  had  no 
terrors.  She  finished  her  imaginary  quotation 
with  a  saucy,  dainty  nod  and  wink,  and  marched 
off  to  her  shopping. 

She  had  scarcely  got  out  of  the  house  when 
Hathaway  entered.  One  glance  told  the  Doctor 
that  the  "no  end  of  trouble"  was  no  exaggeration. 
The  color  had  gone  out  of  the  handsome  face,  and 
the  blue  eyes  were  filled  with  the  over-burdening, 
all-absorbing  anxiety  of  the  young  spirit  in  its 
first  encounter  with  misfortune,  when  the 
moment's  cloud  makes  black  the  whole  universe, 
and  there  never,  no,  never,  was  such  another  woe 
upon  earth. 

"What's  the  matter,  Hathaway?" 

"Everything's  the  matter!"  said  the  young 
man,  dropping  into  a  chair;  "I'm  a  scamp  and  a 
blackguard,  and  I'm  being  punished  as  I  deserve. 
That's  what's  the  matter." 

"Oh,  come,  my  boy — it's  not  so  bad  as  all 
that." 

"Yes  it  is.  I  haven't  the  slightest  claim  on 
your  sympathy,  or — or — any  one's  sympathy.  I 
don't  know  why  I've  got  the  audacity  to  come  to 


THE  MIDGE  269 

you,  and  if  you  tell  me  that  you  can't  help  me — 
why,  I'll  admit  it's  all  I'm  worth." 

"Well,  well,"  said  the  Doctor,  encouragingly, 
"let's  have  the  whole  damnation.  What  is  it?" 

Hathaway  silently  handed  him  a  letter.  It  was 
written  on  thin  paper,  in  a  foreign  hand,  and  dated 
from  Valparaiso.  The  English  was  most  un-Eng 
lish;  but  the  meaning  of  the  communication  was 
clear.  The  Doctor  read  it  through  carefully. 

"Is  this  true?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  boy.  He  sat  with  his 
elbows  on  his  knees,  resting  his  forehead  on  his 
hands. 

The  Doctor  shook  his  head,  gave  a  long,  low 
whistle  of  dismay,  and  walked  to  the  window, 
where  he  stood  for  a  minute  staring  vacantly  out 
at  the  wind-swept  square. 

"Well,"  he  said  at  last,  "you'd  better  tell  me 
all  about  it." 

"There  isn't  much  to  tell,"  Hathaway  began,  in 
a  choking  tone,  as  if  it  hurt  him  to  talk.  *  *  We  were 
at  Valparaiso  a  good  deal,  off  and  on.  We  were 
up  and  down  the  coast  all  through  those  rows  they 
had  down  there — it  was  two  years  ago,  you  know. 
And  we  got  to  going — a  lot  of  us  fellows — to  this 
old  man's  house — this  Garcia.  We  found  out 
afterward  that  it  was  a  regular  gambling-place,  in 
a  shy  sort  of  way,  and  he  got  about  all  the  money 
we  had — 'twasn't  much.  And  I  got  terribly  gone 
on  this  girl — she  was  his  eldest  daughter,  and  she 
was  handsome — beautiful — in  that  Southern  way. 
I  don't  want  to  see  anybody  like  her  again,  though. 


270  THE  MIDGE 

I  was  in  love  with  her — or  I  thought  I  was — I 
don't  know.  I  know  I  was  a  fool  about  it.  The 
fellows  all  said  so.  And  I  suppose  I  did  ask  her 
to  marry  me — yes,  I  did — but  that  was  only  in  the 
first  of  it,  when  I  didn't  know  what  sort  of  girl  she 
was.  Afterward — why,  I  never  thought  she'd 
dream  of  such  a  thing  as  holding  me  to  it.  I'd  cut 
my  throat  before  I  'd  think  of  it. ' '  He  clinched  his 
hands  and  fairly  shuddered. 

The  Doctor  looked  over  the  letter  again. 

"Is  it  genuine,  do  you  think,  this  business?  Or 
is  it  blackmail?" 

"I  don't  know,"  the  young  man  groaned. 

"What's  the  standing  of  the  family?" 

"It's  hard  to  say.  I  don't  know  what  to  tell 
you.  They  have  been  respectable,  certainly — I 
guess  they  had  a  good  deal  of  money  once.  The 
old  man  is  nothing  but  a  shark  and  a  sharper  now, 
and  I  suppose  they're  a  pretty  bad  lot  all  around. 
But  I  can't  go  to  work  to  prove  that,  you  know." 

"Let's  see" — the  Doctor  referred  once  more  to 
the  letter:  "when  does  he  say  he'll  send  his 
charges  to  Washington?" 

"They  must  be  there  now.  You  see,  he 
threatens  to  do  it  if  he  doesn't  hear  from  me 
within  two  months.  And  it's  dated  in  October. 
You  see,  he  thought  I  was  on  the  Wequetequock, 
at  Eio,  and  she  hasn't  been  at  Eio.  The  accursed 
thing  has  lain  there  over  one  mail  and  then  been 
forwarded.  I  got  it  last  night. ' ' 

"But  you  haven't  heard  from  Washington?" 

"I  haven't  yet;  but  I  shall  soon  enough;  and  it 


THE  MIDGE  271 

will  be  the  end  of  me,  Doctor.  They're  lax  enough 
about  most  things,  in  the  navy;  but  that's  the  kind 
of  thing  they  won't  stand  from  a  fellow  in  my  posi 
tion.  They'll  make  an  example  of  me,  just  as  they 
did  of  Willy  Blackford.  Oh,  it's  a  bad  business, 
Doctor.'' 

"Yes,  it  is,"  said  Dr.  Peters,  laying  his  hand 
on  the  bowed  shoulder;  "but  we  must  try  to  make 
the  best  of  it.  Come,  look  up  and  look  it  in  the 
face." 

Hathaway  did  look  up,  after  a  moment. 

"By  Jove,  Doctor,  you're  a  good  man!" 

"Never  mind  about  that.  Let's  get  at  the  facts 
in  the  case.  I  want  to  know  all  about  it.  How  old 
was  this — this  friend  of  yours?" 

"I  don't  know."  A  tinge  of  red  came  into  his 
pale  cheeks.  "The  boys  said  she  was  thirty;  but 
I  don't  believe  she  was  more  than  twenty-six 
or  so." 

"And  you  were — how  old?" 

"I  was  twenty-one  the  day  we  first  got  to  Val 
paraiso." 

"That's  two  years  ago!" 

"Yes." 

"Why  have  they  waited  so  long  to  follow  you 
up?" 

"I  suppose  they  thought  we  were  coming  back. 
We  went  down  the  coast  to  look  after  some 
privateer,  or  something,  and  then  we  got  orders  to 
come  home.  I  can't  explain  it." 

"Looks  crooked,"  said  the  Doctor,  cheer 
fully. 


272  THE  MIDGE 

He  continued  his  examination,  with  encouraging 
results.  Things  began  to  look  better,  at  least 
from  the  point  of  view  of  morality.  Hathaway 
was  frank  and  self-accusatory.  He  made  no 
attempt  to  justify  himself ;  and  it  was  evident  that 
he  had  done  wrong.  But  it  was  also  evident  that 
it  was  the  wrong-doing  of  an  inexperienced, 
impulsive  boy,  under  the  influence  of  a  woman 
much  older  than  himself,  and  with  whom  he  was 
foolishly  in  love.  It  seemed  probable  that  he  was 
the  victim  of  a  family  conspiracy.  He  had  had,  at 
the  time,  a  few  hundred  dollars,  a  legacy  from  his 
uncle,  and  he  had  spent  it  all  at  Valparaiso.  This 
might  have  given  ground  for  a  belief  that  he  was 
wealthier  than  most  of  his  set. 

He  was  utterly  penitent,  humble  and  ashamed; 
that  was  certain.  It  was  not  merely  the  fear  of 
the  consequences ;  the  wound  he  had  dealt  his  own 
honor  and  his  own  sense  of  self-respect  seemed  to 
trouble  him  more  than  anything  else. 

"It  isn't  the  being  discharged,"  he  moaned. 
"I'm  willing  enough  to  get  out  of  the  service — but 
it's  the  going  out  in  this  awful  way.  Or,  if  I  were 
accused  falsely,  I  shouldn't  mind  it  so  much.  But 
I  feel  so  mean  and  degraded — I  can't  look  any 
body  in  the  face." 

"It's  not  so  sure  that  you  are  going  out  of  the 
service,"  Dr.  Peters  put  in.  "And  you've  got  to 
look  me  in  the  face  while  we  resolve  ourselves  into 
a  committee  on  ways  and  means." 

They  began  to  talk  of  the  possibilities  of  help 
to  be  got  from  Hathaway 's  superior  officers.  He 


THE  MIDGE  273 

had  been  something  of  a  favorite  on  ship-board,  he 
owned,  with  another  blush. 

' '  Captain  Chester  is  as  good  an  old  boy  as  ever 
walked,  and  I  know  he'd  give  me  a  hand,  if  he 
could.  But  he  got  into  trouble  in  Blackford's 
case,  and  I  believe  he  got  an  awful  wigging  from 
General  Beecham,  and " 

"Beecham?  General  Beecham? "  repeated  the 
Doctor,  "not  Buel  Beecham — ?  he's  no  sailor. " 

"That's  the  man.  I  know  he's  no  sailor;  but 
he's  a  grand  mogul  in  the  Navy  department^  all 
the  same :  and  he  sits  up  there  at  Washington  and 
bullyrags  old  men  who  were  in  the  service  before 
he  was  born,  and  who  have  forgotten  more  about 
their  business  than  he  ever  knew. ' ' 

' '  Buel  Beecham, ' '  said  Dr.  Peters,  meditatively. 
"Buel  Beecham — General  Buel  Beecham.  You 
don't  say  so!" 

"He's  a  terrible  old  martinet,  you  know.  And 
they  all  ko-tow  to  him.  It  was  he  who  said  that 
Willy  Blackford  must  be  made  an  example  of,  and 
that  he  'd  see  that  it  was  done.  Oh,  he  '11  look  after 


me.9' 


The  Doctor  crossed  the  room  to  the  mantelpiece, 
filled  his  pipe,  lit  it,  and  smoked  a  good  three  min 
utes — three  minutes  is  a  long  time — in  solemn 
silence.  Hathaway  sat  with  his  hands  in  his  pock 
ets,  gazing  into  the  fire,  a  heavy  despair  on  his 
young  face.  There  was  no  sound  in  the  room, 
save  the  Midge's  latest  adopted  kitten,  "scratch 
ing  for  luck"  on  the  table  leg.  When  she  had 
scratched  and  stretched  enough,  she  stole  over  to 


274  THE  MIDGE 

Hathaway,  and  rubbed  against  his  feet.  He 
looked  down  at  her  and  stooped  to  caress  her,  and 
then  suddenly  drew  back  with  a  nervous  start, 
sprang  to  his  feet  and  stood  irresolutely  looking 
from  the  Doctor  to  the  door,  and  back  again. 

The  Doctor  rose  and  spoke  deliberately. 

"Hathaway,  I'm  going  to  Washington. " 

"Sir!" 

"I'm  going  to  Washington  to-night.  Whether 
this  charge  is  pressed  now  or  hereafter,  it's  none 
too  soon  to  look  after  the  case.  I  think  I  may  be 
able  to  do  something  for  you.  Mind!  I  don't 
promise  you  anything.  But  I  may  have  the  power 
to  help  you,  and  if  I  can  I  will. ' ' 

"Oh,  Doctor — Doctor  Peters!"  the  young  man 
began — "what  can  I  say  to " 

"You  can't  say  anything.  Don't  try  to.  All  I 
want  to  hear  from  you  is  this — "  he  came  closer, 
and  took  hold  of  Hathaway  by  both  shoulders. 
They  were  nearly  of  a  height,  the  young  man  and 
the  older. 

1 1 1  want  you  to  promise  me  one  thing.  Never- 
never  again  to  give  yourself  a  chance  to  ask  your 
self  whether  you've  acted  like  an  honorable  man 
or  not." 

"I  promise,  so  help  me  God!"  cried  Paul  Hath 
away,  with  the  tears  in  his  blue  eyes. 


"Midge,"  said  the  Doctor  that  evening,  "I'm 
going  to  Washington." 

"To  Washington?     And  when?"     She  looked 


THE  MIDGE  275 

up  with  a  bright  anticipation  of  pleasure  in  her 
eyes. 

"  To-morrow. " 

4 'Oh!  I  can't  get  ready  so  soon." 

"  There  is  no  occasion  for  you  to  get  ready,  my 
dear.  Who  said  anything  about  your  going! ' ' 

''But  you  aren't  going  anywhere  without  me, 
are  you?"  She  opened  her  eyes  wide. 

"I  am,  though.  Yes,  dear" — he  put  his  arm 
about  her — "it's  a  business  trip,  unfortunately. 
We'll  make  a  pleasure-trip  of  it  some  day;  but 
this  time  I  shall  have  to  go  alone.  I'm  not  par 
ticularly  hankering  after  the  job,  anyway;  but  I'll 
have  to  attend  to  it  all  by  myself. ' ' 

"It  isn't — the  gun?"  She  spoke  with  a  shade 
of  incredulous  apprehension. 

'  '  No,  it  isn  't  the  gun.  Fact  is ' '  he  frowned, 

and  spoke  hesitatingly,  "it  is  not  my  own  business 
at  all.  It's  something  I've  taken  in  hand  for 
young  Hathaway." 

"Oh,  how  good  of  you,  Evert!  Is  it  about  his 
getting  out  of  the  navy?" 

"Well — yes.  It's  more  or  less  connected  with 
that." 

She  laid  down  her  book,  and  rose  and  came  to 
him,  taking  his  hand  and  patting  it  with  a  sort  of 
admiring  caress. 

"And  you  are  going  to  help  him?  You  are  so 
nice,  Evert!  You  are  always  doing  such  things. 
What  is  it  that  he  wants  you  to  do?" 

The  Doctor  frowned  again,  in  perplexity. 

"I  don't  think  I  can  exactly  tell  you,  Midge. 


276  THE  MIDGE 

He — he  wouldn't  like  it.  It's  a  matter  of  private 
business,  and — and — I'm  sure  he  wouldn't  want 
to  have  me  talk  about  it. ' ' 

She  moved  away  with  a  short  "Oh!"  and  the 
Doctor  stood  in  uncomfortable  doubt. 

"Of  course,  I  did  not  mean  to  ask,  if  it  is  any 
thing  private,"  the  Midge  began  again,  after  a 
moment.  "I  did  not  know.  If  he  has  told  you 
not  to  tell  me " 

"Oh,  no,  he  didn't,"  the  Doctor  interrupted, 
hastily.  "Nothing  of  the  sort.  He  didn't  say  a 
word  about  you.  Only — it's  a  private  sort  of 
thing — and  I  don't  feel  at  liberty  to  talk  about  it 
without  his  permission." 

He  was  really  at  a  loss.  He  had  never  had  a 
secret  from  the  Midge,  and  the  situation  was  very 
unpleasant  to  him.  He  wanted  to  give  her  some 
hint  that  Hathaway  was  in  trouble;  but  he  knew 
her  too  well  to  risk  it.  He  could  foresee  the  ques 
tions  she  would  ask  him.  She  would  not  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  the  difficulty;  but,  sooner  or 
later,  she  would  ask  if  Hathaway  had  done  any 
thing  wrong,  and  she  would  receive  his  answer 
with  absolute  confidence.  What  was  he  to  say? 

"It  isn't  that  I  don't  trust  you,  Midge,"  he  be 
gan,  awkwardly ;  but  she  came  back  to  him  with  a 
bright  laugh,  and  rubbed  her  cheek  against  his 
shoulder,  and  talked  to  him  as  though  he  were  a 
child. 

"Oh,  you  dear  old  thing — I  understand!  Did 
you  think  I  Was  angry?"  She  grasped  the  lapels 
of  his  coat,  and  pretended  to  shake  him.  "It  is 


THE  MIDGE  277 

just  like  you.  You  are  the  soul  of  honor,  and  you 
are  just  conscience  all  over,  and  I  am  glad  of  it. 
There!" — and  she  kissed  him — "What  do  I  want 
to  know  about  your  Mr.  Paul  Hathaway?  Go  and 
get  your  traveling-bag,  and  I  will  pack  it  for  you. 
How  many  shirts  do  you  want  1 ' ' 

The  next  evening  Dr.  Peters  was  in  Washington. 
He  slept  that  night  at  a  hotel,  and  went  down  to 
breakfast  the  next  morning  at  the  common  table, 
where  no  Midge  sat  opposite  him,  bright  and  fresh 
in  flowery  Watteau  morning-wrapper.  He  did 
not  like  it  at  all,  and  in  spite  of  his  strange  sur 
roundings,  through  all  his  sense  of  discomfort  and 
disturbance,'  he  somehow  felt  as  if  it  were  the 
Midge  who  had  gone  away  from  him,  and  not  he 
who  had  left  the  Midge  behind. 


xni 

GENERAL  BUEL  BEECHAM  sat  at  his 
desk  and  listened  rather  impatiently  to 
Dr.  Peters.  General  Beecham  was  gray- 
bearded,  with  a  thin,  cold,  rather  handsome  face 
— a  New  England  face ;  the  face  of  a  man  certainly 
self-conscious,  selfish  perhaps,  intelligent,  deter 
mined,  and  strong  in  the  kind  of  pride  that  comes 
dangerously  close  to  morbid  vanity. 

The  Doctor  was  talking  slowly  but  earnestly,  in 
his  low,  even  voice.  General  Beecham  listened; 
but  he  played  with  a  paper-knife,  and  looked  out  of 
the  window,  where  the  January  breeze  was  whirl 
ing  a  thin  faint  fall  of  snow  hither  and  thither. 

"I  really  don't  see  what  I  have  to  do  with  this 
matter,"  he  said  irritably,  as  the  Doctor  paused. 
"I  have  no  connection  at  all  with  the  case,  Mr. — 
Mr.  Peters.  You  appear  to  think  that  it  rests 
with  me  to  determine  what  shall  be  done.  You  are 
in  error.  And  even  if — even  if  I  had  the  influence 
you  suppose  me  to  have,  I  should  see  no  reason — 
no  reason  whatever — for  interfering.  I  am  sorry 
for  your  young  friend,  of  course;  but,  as  far  as 
I  can  judge  from  what  you  have  said,  he  is  un 
questionably  guilty  of  a  grave  offense  against  the 
honor  of  the  service,  and  an  offense  that  calls  for 
exemplary  punishment.  I  certainly  should  not  let 

278 


THE  MIDGE  279 

my  private  feeling  of  pity  for  the  young  man  in 
terfere  with  my  obvious  duty  as  a  public  officer. 
And  I  may  say,  Mr. — Mr. — excuse  me — Mr.  Peters, 
that  if  you  knew  to  whom  you  were  speaking,  you 
would  hardly  proffer  such  a  request."  He  had 
worked  himself  up  into  something  like  indignation 
— a  sublimated  testiness,  as  though  he  felt  that  he 
ought  to  feel  offended. 

"I  rather  think  I  know  you,  General  Beecham," 
said  Dr.  Peters,  in  the  same  quiet,  slow  way. 

General  Beecham 's  lower  jaw  suddenly  set  itself 
against  the  upper  with  a  peculiar  and  significant 
firmness. 

"I  don't  understand  you,  sir." 

The  Doctor  was  unmoved. 

" Seems  to  me  I've  met  you  before,  General. 
I  was  in  the  soldiering  way  once  myself,  and  you 
were  a  colonel  then.  Met  you  only  once;  but  I 
think  you'll  remember  it  if  I  recall  the  circum 
stances  to  you.  You  inquired  my  name  then,  and, 
if  my  memory  is  correct,  I  didn't  give  it  to  you. 
But  I  guess  you  remember  me,  all  the  same.  You 
had  your  quarters  at  old  Mammy  Chapin's  then, 
back  of  Vicksburg,  and  the  time  I  met  you  was  the 
time  I  took  a  young  man  to  you  who  had  made  a 
bad  slip,  and  who  was  sorry  for  it  afterwards." 

"Yes,"  said  General  Beecham:  "I  think  I 
know  you  now." 

He  spoke  almost  mechanically.  His  face  had 
suddenly  grown  stern  and  troubled.  He  sat  per 
fectly  still,  holding  the  paper-knife  balanced  in  his 
hand,  his  eyes  still  staring  out  of  the  window, 


280  THE  MIDGE 

where  the  snow-powder  whirled  in  the  wind.  The 
Doctor  followed  his  gaze  with  a  glance  as  absent 
and  absorbed.  He  did  not  see  the  snow  or  the 
January  sky.  His  memory  was  full  of  a  day  of 
summer  heat,  of  dust-laden  air,  trembling  under 
an  intolerable  glare  of  blue  sky. 

Captain  Evert  Peters,  U.  S.  A.,  had  been  riding 
up  the  road  that  ran  over  the  hills  near  the  river, 
stretched  across  the  broad  depression  that  lay  be 
tween  them  and  the  rise  of  ground  far  to  the  west, 
and  disappeared  on  the  hazy  horizon. 

He  had  been  over  a  year  at  the  front;  but  he 
had  no  stomach  for  the  ride  along  that  road. 
There  had  been  some  sharp  fighting  down  below, 
near  the  old  Waters  place ;  the  federal  attack  had 
been  repulsed  three  or  four  hours  before,  and  ever 
since  daybreak  the  wounded  had  been  coming  in, 
some  in  ambulances,  some  in  ox-carts.  The  heavy 
vehicles  labored  along  in  a  low-hanging  cloud  of 
dust.  Captain  Peters,  riding  leisurely  back  to 
ward  his  quarters,  got  sick  of  passing  the  long 
train  with  its  endless  succession  of  suffering  faces. 
They  were  silent,  the  most  of  the  wounded,  but 
they  were  hot  and  thirsty  and  worn  out  with  pain 
and  fatigue ;  and  sometimes  they  groaned  or  swore 
or  asked  vainly  for  the  water  that  was  not  at  hand. 
Just  as  he  turned  from  the  road  to  follow  a  bridle 
path  that  led  across  the  fields,  a  team  of  oxen 
lumbered  by,  drawing  a  heavy  wagon.  In  the  bot 
tom  lay  three  men,  one  with  a  blanket  over  his  legs. 
A  negro  drove,  sitting  sidewise  on  the  high  seat, 
his  legs  swinging  over  the  front  wheels.  He 


THE  MIDGE  281 

was  whistling  with  amiable  cheerfulness;  but  he 
stopped  his  music  to  answer  a  low  moan  from  the 
man  with  the  blanket  over  his  legs. 

"D'r  ain't  none,  honey,"  he  said,  soothingly: 
"I  done  toP  you  a  piece  back  dah  wa'n't  none. 
I'm  dreffle  dry  myse'f,  honey — fV  Gawd  I  wisht 
I  had  some  water  myse  'f — I  do,  shuah. ' '  His  tone 
had  an  exaggerated  earnestness,  as  if  he  were 
sympathizing  with  a  child,  and  he  spoke  of  his  own 
need  of  water  as  a  consoling  consideration. 

Captain  Peters  shook  his  canteen — it  was 
empty.  With  a  sigh  for  the  cruelty  of  it  all — he 
had  got  beyond  the  first  case-hardened  period  of 
soldierly  indifference — he  jerked  his  horse's  head 
to  one  side  and  left  the  road  behind  him. 

"  Seems  as  though  they  ought  to  have  water, 
anyway, ' '  he  said  to  himself. 

The  bridle-path  ran  through  a  piece  of  woods, 
and  Captain  Peters  took  off  his  cap  as  he  entered 
the  quiet  shade.  His  eyes  rested  gratefully  on  the 
cool  spaces  among  the  trees.  He  felt  for  a  mo 
ment  a  sense  of  relaxation;  of  being  out  of  the 
ugly  business;  a  more  than  physical  relief.  It 
was  only  for  a  moment,  however;  the  sight  of  a 
man  and  a  horse  ahead  of  him  brought  him  up  with 
tense  muscles  and  alert  nerves. 

The  man  stood  by  the  horse,  tightening  the  sad 
dle-girth.  He  was  hardly  a  man,  the  captain  saw, 
at  a  second  glance.  He  was  tall  and  well  built; 
but  he  could  not  well  have  been  sixteen  years  old. 
His  clothes  were  ragged  and  worn,  and  much  too 
small  for  him.  The  strained,  patched  shirt  of 


282  THE  MIDGE 

blue  flannel  was  too  tight  at  the  collar  to  button 
around  his  neck,  and  the  short  sleeves  showed  half 
of  his  white  forearm.  The  clothes  and  the  man 
did  not  belong  together.  The  man  gave  the  lie 
to  his  garments. 

Captain  Peters  had  a  good  minute  in  which  to 
make  these  observations.  His  horse  had  stepped 
softly  on  the  grass,  and  the  boy  did  not  look  up 
until  he  had  finished  his  work  at  the  girth.  Then 
he  turned  on  the  Captain  a  handsome,  thin-fea 
tured  young  face,  that  went  from  a  ghastly  white 
to  a  furious  red.  The  Captain  knew  the  face.  He 
had  seen  it  two  days  before,  at  the  railroad  station. 

"  That's  Beech  am 's  boy,"  some  one  had  said. 
"He's  come  down  to  serve  on  the  general's  staff, 
with  his  father.  Beecham  took  him  out  of  school 
to  bring  him  here." 

"Looks  too  pretty  for  practical  use,"  some  one 
else  had  commented. 

"Young  man,"  said  Captain  Peters,  gravely, 
"what  are  you  doing  here!" 

The  boy  began  to  pull  at  the  girth  again,  his  face 
away  from  the  speaker. 

"I  don't  know  what  business  that  is  of  yours, 
sir, ' '  he  replied  with  tremulous  insolence. 

"7  do,"  said  the  Captain:  "elk!" 

He  gave  a  click  with  nis  tongue,  at  which  his 
horse  raised  his  head.  The  boy  started,  and,  look 
ing  up,  followed  with  his  eyes  the  line  in  which  the 
young  officer's  outstretched  forefinger  pointed. 
There  was  a  small  morocco  traveling  satchel  lying 


THE  MIDGE  283 

on  the  ground   at   the   feet   of   Beecham's   boy. 

"Pick  that  up,"  said  Captain  Peters,  calmly: 
"lead  that  horse  of  yours — that  girth  '11  do  as  it 
is — and  come  along  with  me. ' ' 

"And  suppose  I  won't?"  asked  the  boy,  his 
blood  once  more  in  his  cheeks. 

"I'll  shoot  you,  my  son,"  said  the  Captain. 

Young  Beecham  looked  at  him,  and  breathed 
hard  and  fast  for  a  few  irresolute  moments. 

"What  right  have  you ?"  he  began. 

"It's  no  use  talking,  my  boy,"  the  Captain  in 
terrupted,  with  grim  good  nature;  "Anybody  has 
got  the  right.  Does  your  father  know  what  you  're 
doing?" 

The  question,  suddenly  and  vigorously  put,  was 
too  much  for  the  boy.  He  threw  up  his  hands  in 
a  wild  way,  and  his  voice  was  broken  with  half- 
hysterical  sobs,  as  he  cried  out : 

"No!  I  don't  care!  no,  he  doesn't.  Yes,  I'm 
running  way.  That 's  it.  You  may  call  me  a  cow 
ard  or  anything  else  you  want  to.  I  don't  care — 
I  don't  care,  I  say!  I  can't  stand  it.  It  makes 
me  sick.  I  didn't  know  what  it  was — I  thought  I 
wanted  to  come  here — but  I  didn't  know  what  it 
was.  I'm  not  afraid  of  being  killed — if  any  one 
says  so,  he's  a  liar.  I'd  rather  die  than  see  it  all. 
Oh,  it's  awful — awful!"  He  pressed  his  palms 
to  his  eyes,  his  fingers  clutching  his  head.  "I've 
been  up  since  five  o'clock,  watching  them  come 
in,"  he  went  on;  "and  it  almost  drove  me  crazy. 
For  God's  sake,  take  me  anywhere — anywhere 


284  THE  MIDGE 

where  I  won't  see  them.  I  don't  care  what  you 
do  with  me — send  me  to  prison — only  let  me  get 
away  from  this  terrible  place. " 

The  Captain's  voice  gave  no  hint  of  either  sym 
pathy  or  disdain,  as  he  said : 

* '  Get  on  that  horse,  young  man,  and  come  along 
with  me. ' ' 

The  boy  obeyed,  silently.  He  hung  his  head. 
His  eyes  were  wet  with  the  ready  tears  of  youth. 
They  rode  on  together  through  the  woods,  hearing 
no  sound  save  the  breaking  of  dry  twigs  under 
their  horses'  hoofs,  and  the  rustle  and  whirr  of 
an  occasional  frightened  bird,  flying  away  at  their 
approach. 

Finally  the  Captain  spoke. 

"Who  gave  you  those  clothes?" 

"These  clothes?"  the  boy  repeated,  anxiously. 

"Your  father's  servant,  wasn't  it? — the  nig 
ger." 

Young  Beecham  lifted  his  head. 

"I  shan't  tell  you,"  he  said.  "You  have  no 
right  to  ask  me  that." 

"Just  so,"  the  Captain  assented;  "that's  a  fact. 
I  haven't." 

They  passed  out  of  the  woods  in  silence,  and 
struck  the  road.  They  were  not  pushing  their 
horses;  but  the  pace  at  which  they  traveled 
brought  them  up  with  the  rear  of  the  ambulance 
train  in  a  few  minutes.  The  last  wagon  was  the 
one  which  Captain  Peters  had  noticed  when  he  left 
the  road.  Something  had  caused  it  to  drop  be 
hind  the  others.  As  they  came  alongside  it,  the 


THE  MIDGE  285 

Captain  remembered  the  wounded  man  who  had 
asked  for  water. 

"Is  there  anything  in  your  canteen!"  he  de 
manded,  turning  to  the  boy,  who  was  staring  at  the 
wagon  load  with  a  sickened  fascination. 

Beecham  took  the  tin  flask  from  his  pocket. 
"There's  water  in  it,"  he  said. 

Captain  Peters  rode  up  and  hailed  the  negro 
driver,  who  was  whistling  still,  but  somewhat  less 
cheerily,  as  though  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
day  were  beginning  to  wear  on  him,  too.  He 
stopped  his  team,  and  the  Captain  thrust  the  flask 
over  the  side  of  the  wagon.  Two  of  the  occupants 
were  sitting  propped  up  against  the  back  of  the 
seat.  One  was  wounded  in  the  shoulder,  and  the 
other  was  badly  cut  about  the  head,  which  was 
swathed  in  rough  bandages.  Both  of  them  drank, 
acknowledging  the  attention  with  eager  grunts. 
The  negro  looked  on  with  mutely  yearning  eyes. 
When  the  second  man  handed  the  canteen  back  it 
was  empty.  The  Captain  glanced  at  the  third 
man,  the  one  who  had  lain  with  a  blanket  over  his 
legs.  The  blanket  covered  his  whole  body  now, 
and  his  upturned  face. 

The  man  with  the  wounded  shoulder  saw  Cap 
tain  Peters 's  glance,  and  spoke. 

"He  don't  want  no  water  no  more." 

The  other  sufferer  lifted  his  head,  swaddled  in 
dirty  white,  directed  a  wink  of  sinister  humor  at 
the  Captain,  and  said  to  his  comrade: 

"How  do  you  know  he  don't,  Pete?" 

The  Captain  looked  at  young  Beecham.    He 


286  THE  MIDGE 

was  shaking  with  an  aguish  tremor.  They  hur 
ried  on,  riding  down  the  long  line ;  and  until  they 
had  taken  the  cross-road  that  led  to  Colonel 
Beecham 's  quarters,  the  boy  kept  his  head  averted, 
looking  off  the  road  to  the  bare  and  dusty 
fields. 

When  they  came  in  sight  of  the  little  hill  on 
which  the  old  Waters  house  stood,  Beecham  grew 
pale  and  made  a  motion  to  check  his  horse.  He 
saw  the  Captain  looking  at  him,  and  he  pressed 
on.  But  his  boy's  face  expressed  an  emotion  of 
mortal  anguish.  He  was  suffering  as  only  young 
things  can  suffer. 

There  was  a  little  clump  of  bushes  and  low  trees 
near  the  gate  of  the  place.  When  they  reached 
it,  Peters  spoke,  as  quietly  as  ever. 

"Stay  here  till  I  come  back.    You  hear  me?" 

The  boy  nodded,  with  an  effort.  Captain  Peters 
rode  up  to  the  house,  and  in  five  minutes  he  had 
said  what  he  had  to  say  to  Colonel  Beecham,  and 
the  two  men  were  walking  down  to  the  spot  where 
the  boy  stood,  motionless  as  death,  with  his  tor 
tured  white  face  turned  expectantly  toward  them. 


General  Beecham  was  more  than  twenty  years 
older,  his  black  beard  had  gone  gray,  a  score  of 
years  of  ambition  and  successful  struggle  had 
hardened  his  handsome  features ;  but  the  face  that 
stared  in  blank  misery  out  of  the  window  of  the 
office  in  Washington  was  the  same  face  that  when 
Peters  had  last  seen  it  had  reflected  the  shame 


THE  MIDGE  287 

and  agony  of  that  younger  face  that  to-day  was 
but  a  memory. 

General  Beecham 's  eyes  did  not  leave  the  win 
dow  as  he  spoke  to  the  Doctor,  in  a  harsh,  con 
strained  voice,  picking  his  words  with  evident  dis 
taste  for  speaking  at  all. 

"At  the  time  I  met  you,  Captain  Peters — pardon 
me — you  are  Captain  Peters  still?" 

"Plain  ' mister,'  now,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"Captain  Peters,"  the  General  resumed,  with 
a  slight  inclination  of  his  head,  and  a  quietly  dig 
nified  insistence  in  his  tone:  "I  told  you,  at  that 
time,  that  you  had  put  me  under  the  greatest 
obligation  of  my  life.  It  has  been  the  only  obli 
gation  of  my  life.  I  have  never " 

"Excuse  me!"  broke  in  the  Doctor;  and  at  his 
tone  General  Beecham  started  and  wheeled  round 
in  his  chair,  his  eyes  opening  wider  as  they  rested 
on  the  speaker.  "7  told  you  at  that  time,  Gen 
eral  Beecham,  that  you  were  under  no  obligation 
whatever  to  me.  What  I  did,  I  did  not  do  to 
oblige  you,  or  to  oblige  any  one ;  but  because  I  felt 
that  the  boy  had  a  right  to  be  judged  mercifully." 

There  was  nearly  a  minute  of  silence  between 
the  two  men.  Then  General  Beecham  got  up  -and 
went  to  the  window  and  drummed  on  the  pane. 

"Do  you  know — about  my  boy — afterwards?" 
he  asked,  slowly. 

"In  Virginia!" 

"Yes.  He  led  his  company,  you  know,  when 
Mcllvaine  was  shot?" 

"I  heard  about  it,"  said  the  Doctor. 


288  THE  MIDGE 

General  Beecham  came  back  from  the  win 
dow. 

"I  have  a  letter  here,"  he  began,  with  an  anx 
ious  eagerness  in  his  manner,  "  which  Crawford — 
Colonel  John  Crawford — you  know  him? — wrote 
me  at  the  time.  I'd  like  you  to  see  it." 

His  fingers  were  shaky  as  he  took  out  his  wallet 
and  drew  from  it  a  discolored  paper,  folded  and 
cracked  at  the  folds.  He  spread  it  out  carefully, 
almost  tenderly,  before  he  gave  it  to  the  Doctor. 
Then  he  smiled  in  a  wan  way.  "  I  Ve  often  wanted 
to  meet  you,  Captain,"  he  went  on:  "to  show  it 
to  you.  He  was  only  seventeen  then.  He  would 
have  been  thirty-nine  this  January,  if " 

The  Doctor  pretended  to  read  the  paper  on  his 
lap;  but  he  had  no  heart  to  try  to  make  sense  of 
it.  He  only  remembered  afterward  that  old-fash 
ioned  Colonel  Crawford  wrote:  "An  act  of  such 
exceptional  Gallantry,  performed  by  one  so  Young, 
merits  the  highest  commendation  from  his  Su 
perior  Officer." 

General  Beecham  was  again  drumming  on  the 
window-pane. 

"I  thank  you,  Captain  Peters,"  he  said,  some 
what  awkwardly,  "for  pointing  out  to  me  that  it 
was  my  duty  to  look  at  this  matter  in  a  rather 
more  Christian  light — to — to  make  allowances.  I 
suppose  we  all — we  all  need  these  reminders  from 
time  to  time.  This  has  been  painful  to  me,  of 
course ;  but  I  am  glad  to  have  had  the  opportunity 
of  letting  you  know  how  Buel — how  my  boy  re 
trieved  his — "  he  paused — "his  error." 


THE  MIDGE  289 

1  '  I  knew  it  before, ' '  said  the  Doctor,  rising ;  *  *  or 
I  should  not  have  spoken." 

General  Beecham  dropped  into  his  seat,  and 
stroked  his  gray  beard  with  a  thin,  nervous  hand. 

' '  Of  course,  of  course,  you  understand,  Captain 
Peters — after  what  you  have  said,  I  shall  certainly 
look  into  this  matter,  and  I  shall  see  what  can  be 
done  for  your  young  friend.  Your  opinion  of  the 
case  must  naturally  go  a  long  way  with  me.  And 
you  must  pardon  me  if — if  I  did  not  take  this  view 
of  it,  at  first.  The  clemency  of  the  department 
has  been  so  outrageously  abused — are  you  staying 
in  Washington  for  any  length  of  time?" 

'  '  I  leave  to-night, ' '  the  Doctor  told  him. 

"I  should  have  liked  to — to  show  you  something 
— well,  never  mind. ' ' 


XIV 

THE  weary  trip  from  Baltimore  to  New  York 
came  hard  on  the  Doctor.  A  sense  of  de- 
.  pression  for  which  he  could  not  account 
weighed  on  him  with  a  discomfort  that  was  almost 
physical.  He  had  succeeded  in  his  mission ;  yet  he 
felt  downcast  and  troubled.  He  tried  to  reason 
it  out  with  himself,  but  he  could  not.  Perhaps,  he 
thought,  it  was  the  stirring  up  of  old  memories 
that  had  made  him  feel  old  himself.  Perhaps  it 
was  merely  the  natural  effect  of  a  first  absence 
from  home  and  from  the  dear  child  whose  presence 
made  all  that  he  meant  when  he  said  to  himself, 
"home/1 

"It's  my  stomach, "  he  concluded,  as  he  got  out 
of  a  University  Place  car  at  Houston  Street. 
"I'll  go  to  Pigault's  and  get  a  nip  of  brandy  to 
settle  those  sawdust  sandwiches  at  Wilmington. 
I  shall  frighten  the  Midge  if  I  go  home  like 
this." 

Pigault's  had  changed  within  the  past  year  or 
so.  It  was  no  longer  a  brasserie — it  was  rather  an 
American  bar-room.  The  little  crowd  that  had 
formerly  come,  night  after  night,  to  drink  mild 
potations  of  beer  and  play  long  games  of  dominoes, 
had  somehow  melted  away.  The  Doctor  had  been 
the  first  to  depart;  then  M.  Marie  had  gone  up 

290 


THE  MIDGE  291 

town,  to  teach  in  a  fashionable  school  (and  ulti 
mately  to  run  away  with  a  German  brewer's 
daughter,  and  to  be  forgiven  and  made  a  slave  of 
authority  among  the  slaves  in  the  brewery  count 
ing-room)  ;  Mr.  Martin  was  dead,  and  little  Potain 
was  in  the  lunatic  asylum  on  Blackw  ell's  Island, 
all  day  long  reading  a  newspaper  aloud  to  an  im 
aginary  wife.  And,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
they  had  all  deserted  the  place.  The  "  young  fel 
lows"  of  the  quarter  had  it  pretty  well  to  them 
selves  now.  There  was  a  pool-table  in  the  rear  of 
the  room.  Mme.  Pigault  sat  no  more  behind  the 
desk.  A  barkeeper  with  a  black  moustache  and 
a  white  apron  mixed  drinks  with  agility  and 
despatch,  shoved  his  compositions  to  one  set  of 
customers  with  his  left  hand,  and  grasped  a  fresh 
bottle  in  his  right  as  he  hailed  the  next  lot  with, 
"Well,  gents,  what '11  it  be!" 

Half  way  down  the  counter  swung  a  screen, 
shutting  off  the  further  half  from  the  sight  of 
people  at  the  door.  There  was  a  general  deterior 
ation,  moral  and  material,  about  the  place ;  but  this 
was  its  last  and  worst  sign. 

The  Doctor,  who  had  all  his  life  drank  what  he 
had  a  right  to  drink  in  the  face  of  all  the  world, 
carefully  placed  himself  between  the  screen  and 
the  door,  and  asked  for  a  "pony"  of  brandy.  As 
the  barkeeper  poured  it  out,  he  heard  a  familiar 
voice  at  the  other  side  of  the  screen.  Bending  for 
ward  enough  to  glance  down  the  bar,  he  saw  Piero 
and  young  Goubaud,  the  puffy-faced,  weak,  ab 
sinthe-drinking  son  of  the  house  of  Goubaud. 


292  THE  MIDGE 

The  place  had  indeed  run  down.  The  Doctor 
was  no  aristocrat,  neither  had  the  line  of  caste 
been  sharply  drawn  in  the  old  brasserie,  as  he  re 
membered  it ;  but  such  a  couple  as  this  would  never 
have  been  allowed  to  hang  over  the  bar  in  the  days 
when  Mme.  Pigault's  comely  presence  graced  the 
other  side  of  that  piece  of  furniture.  Goubaud's 
voice  was  husky,  and  Piero  was  talking  so  loud 
and  laughing  so  much,  that  the  Doctor  felt  sure 
that  the  man  of  maritime  ways  was  taking  a  sail 
or's  privilege. 

At  the  moment,  he  was  urgently  asserting  that 
some  one  was  a  good  man. 

' l  Oh,  yes,  * '  he  said, ' '  he  is  a  good  man.  I  know 
'im — ten — fifteen — twenty  yeah.  He  good  man — 
fairs'  rate  boss  vair'  damn  good  man." 

Young  Goubaud  had  his  doubts  about  this,  and 
expressed  them  with  thick  earnestness,  reiterat 
ing  after  the  fashion  of  a  man  who  exploits  an  old 
grievance. 

"I  do'  know,J'  he  grumbled,  "I  do'  know  'bout 
zat.  I  tell  you,  seh,  I  do'  know  'bout  zat.  Ouat 
fo'  he  ouant  take  money  out  my  pipple's  pocket 
fo'?  I  tell  you,  M'sieu'  Piero,  I  tell  you,  seh,  he 
don't  had  no  right  fo'  to  take  zat  ge'l  away  f 'om 
w'eh  she  ouas  sen'  to  bo'd.  I  tell  you,  M'sieu' 
Piero,  zat  ouas  not  ho-no-ra-ble — no.  My  poo' 
fazzer,  zat  take  ze  money  out  f 'om  his  pocket,  same 
you  put  yo'  hand  in  an'  take  it  out." 

"Ouell,"  said  Piero,  consolingly,  "zat  all  a-ight 
now — he  don'  kip  her  no  mo',  I  guess.  Zat  young 


THE  MIDGE  293 

feP,  lie  take  her  away  prit*  soon,  I  guess.  She 
laike  young  man  betteh  as  ol '  man. ' ' 

"Eat  seV  him  raight,  M'sieu'  Piero,"  said 
young  Goubaud,  with  Ehadamanthine  severity: 
"I  tell  you,  M'sieu'  Piero,  I  tell  you ' 

Piero  laughed  loudly,  the  humor  of  the  situation 
growing  on  him. 

"I  guess  he  don'  kip  her  fV  himse'f  no  more — 
young  feP  get  her — oP  man  ain't  got  no  show." 
And  he  laughed  still  more  noisily. 

The  Doctor,  facing  the  screen,  half  raised  his 
clenched  fists.  Then  a  look  of  disgust  came  over 
his  face;  the  steely  fire  went  out  of  his  eyes,  and 
he  turned  away,  and  walked  out  of  the  place  ut 
terly  sick  at  heart. 

The  barkeeper  looked  at  the  untouched  glass 
and  the  quarter  of  a  dollar  lying  beside  it.  He 
poured  the  brandy  back  into  the  bottle.  '  *  Old  gent 
seems  to  be  pretty  well  rattled,"  he  said  to  him 
self.  Then  he  put  the  quarter  in  the  till,  took  out 
ten  cents  in  change,  and  carefully  put  the  ten  cents 
under  the  cheese-safe  at  the  end  of  the  bar,  where 
there  were  various  other  coins  already  deposited. 


The  Doctor  could  hardly  bear  to  go  on  his  way 
and  meet  the  Midge,  yet  he  did,  and  so  controlled 
himself  that  she  saw  only  his  obvious  fatigue  and 
exhaustion.  She  made  him  go  through  the  mo 
tions  of  eating  a  bit  of  supper,  and  gave  him  a 
glass  of  the  hottest  hot  punch  that  affection  and 


294  THE  MIDGE 

boiling  water  could  produce,  and  then  sent  him 
to  bed.  She  had  asked  him  nothing  about  the 
business  on  which  he  had  gone — not  even  whether 
he  had  been  successful  or  no.  She  had  only  ex 
pressed  her  delight  at  having  him  back,  treating 
him  royally  to  her  rare  kisses,  and  rallying  him 
brightly  on  his  desertion  of  her.  And  he  had  taken 
caresses  and  had  returned  them,  with  a  sense  of 
absolute  shame,  with  a  feeling  of  guilt,  as  though 
he  were  receiving  something  under  false  pretenses. 
When  he  got  into  his  own  room — he  did  not  go 
to  bed — he  tried  to  think  it  all  over.  It  was  shock 
ing — it  was  shameful — but  he  had  to  admit  that  it 
was  something  that  he  should  have  foreseen.  It 
was  a  vile  thing  that  there  should  be  people  to  talk 
and  think  as  those  two  louts  in  the  bar-room  had 
talked  and  thought.  But  then  he  had  always 
known  what  the  world  was.  Was  any  one  to 
blame — except  himself — because  he  had  found  out 
what  he  ought  to  have  expected,  if  he  had  used  his 
brains?  tie  had  been  watching  the  Midge,  fur 
tively,  in  the  half  hour  during  which  she  had  let 
him  sit  up  and  be  nursed  and  petted.  But  he  had 
had  no  need  to  make  the  inspection.  From  the 
moment  that  he  had  heard  Piero's  speech  the 
Midge  had  ceased  to  be  the  Midge  to  him — she  had 
become  a  woman.  He  marveled  how  it  was  that 
he  had  looked  at  her  before  and  had  made  no  more 
of  her  sex  than  if  she  had  been  his  sister,  or  a 
piece  of  furniture.  He  could  never  think  of  her 
in  that  way  again.  She  was  a  woman.  She  was 
not  only  a  woman,  but  a  pretty  woman.  And  more 


THE  MIDGE  295 

than  that,  she  was  a  charming  and  fascinating 
woman,  radiant  with  that  mysterious  power  which 
is  given  to  some  women  irrespective  of  beauty  or 
cleverness — the  power  of  making  men  admire  and 
love  and  worship  and  long  for  them. 

He  had  seen  it  all  before,  of  course,  but  he  had 
not  been  conscious  that  he  saw.  Now  he  saw,  in 
deed.  He  had  looked  at  her  a  thousand  times  with 
fond  affection,  as  she  moved  about  the  rooms, 
busying  herself  with  little  duties,  singing  softly  to 
herself,  fetching  and  carrying  this  or  that  for  his 
comfort  and  convenience.  But  she  had  been  in  a 
way,  a  part  of  him,  a  part  of  his  life.  He  had  had 
no  consciousness  of  her  as  a  distinct  being — as  one 
of  the  women  who  make  up  the  other  half  of  our 
world.  Now,  all  of  a  sudden,  he  could  look  at  her 
from  a  distance,  and  take  note  and  cognizance  of 
her  as  though  she  were  a  stranger.  Now,  for  the 
first  time,  it  meant  something  to  him  that  she  was 
graceful  as  she  moved,  as  she  lifted  her  head,  as 
she  turned  her  delicate  white  wrists ;  that  her  face 
was  full  of  quick  changing  expressions;  that  her 
voice  had  tones  like  music,  mysteriously  ex 
pressive,  provoking,  alluring ;  that  she  could,  when 
she  pleased,  turn  to  him  and  make  manifest  in  her 
whole  bearing  a  thought  of  love  or  tenderness  that 
was  in  itself  a  caress.  He  did  not  formulate  this 
in  clean-cut  thought;  but  as  an  emotion  it  was 
forcibly  present  and  real  to  him.  And  in  all  the 
whirl  of  puzzled  feeling  and  thinking  in  which  he 
found  himself,  one  idea  came  over  and  over  again 
to  him,  and  he  drove  it  angrily  away,  and  tried  to 


296  THE  MIDGE 

put  it  aside,  and  was  ashamed  that  it  should  come 
back  to  him — over  and  over  again. 


The  next  day  he  went  to  see  Paul  Hathaway. 
Mr.  Hathaway  was  living  in  a  certain  caravansary 
in  Clinton  Place,  that  did  not  call  itself  a  lodging 
house,  but  that  had  "furnished  rooms  to  let."  It 
had  been  a  grand  old  house  in  its  time.  The  ma 
hogany  folding-doors  were  there  still,  though  they 
never  rolled  back  in  their  grooves,  opening  the 
great  archway  between  the  two  parlors;  for  an 
actress  had  the  back  parlor,  and  a  chiropodist  was 
in  front.  A  great  many  people  knew  that  old 
house  who  would  not  care  to  boast  of  their  ac 
quaintance  with  it.  Many  lively  and  rather  dis 
reputable  young  Bohemians,  and  many  dull  and 
respectable  dry-goods  clerks  have  occupied  those 
dingy  rooms.  The  men  who  gave  that  word  "Bo 
hemian"  its  meaning  to  New  Yorkers,  men  who 
live  now  only  as  traditions;  men  who  have  re 
formed  themselves  into  Philistine  solidity,  men 
who  have  made  themselves  great  and  honored  in 
literature;  men  who  are  still  staking  body  and 
soul  against  drink  and  poverty  and  general  degra 
dation — scores  of  such  men  have  taken  their  turn 
in  that  queer  lodging-house,  and  have  gone  on 
their  hurried  way  through  youth. 

Many  a  bright  boy  has  clattered  over  the  mar 
ble  pavement  of  that  great  hall-way,  swung  him 
self  up  the  mighty  spiral  staircase,  bolted  into  his 
little  room  on  the  third  or  fourth  floor,  and  found 


THE  MIDGE  297 

the  letter  there  from  the  great  magazine,  respect 
fully  declining  his  poem.  Then  he  has  cursed  the 
magazine  for  a  ring-ridden  humbug,  run  by  a 
clique  of  selfish,  old-fashioned  harpies  of  litera 
ture,  in  league  with  that  hypocritical  dunderhead, 
the  complimentary,  polite,  regretful,  manuscript- 
returning  editor.  And  he  has  dashed  off,  of  a 
Saturday  night,  maybe,  to  forget  it  and  seek  a 
happier  world  in  the  wretched  holes  so  near  at 
hand,  with  vile  drink  and  with  viler  company. 
And  on  the  morrow  he  has  wakened  to  find  in  a 
headache  and  an  empty  purse  the  result  of  all 
such  experiments  in  consolation,  and  he  has  sent 
off  a  letter  to — well,  the  likeliest  man  he  knew, 
asking  for  a  dollar  or  two,  for  God's  sake:  and 
if  the  dollar  or  two  came,  he  has  bought  brandy 
and  soda,  and  has  sat  him  down  to  write  a  poem 
on  his  headache,  which  he  has  sent  to  the  maga 
zine  he  cursed  the  night  before,  and  to  which  he 
has  sworn  a  hundred  times  never  to  apply  again, 
and  from  which  he  surely  gets  back  that  liberal- 
spirited  lay.  And  if  the  dollar  or  two  did  not 
come,  why,  he  lay  in  bed,  and  listened  to  the 
church-bells,  and  crawled  out  when  the  freshness 
of  the  day  was  gone,  to  wait,  breakfastless,  for 
dinner-time. 

What  becomes  of  such  boys?  One  whom  I 
knew,  lodging  in  that  very  house,  is  now  a  "  prom 
inent  "  leather-dealer  in  the  swamp.  He  would 
draw  his  check  for  a  thousand  dollars  if  I  would 
let  him  destroy  that  scrap-book  of  his  poems  now 
in  my  possession.  Another  is  the  distinguished 


298  THE  MIDGE 

and  successful  litterateur — there  is  a  point  where 
a  successful  writer  ceases  to  be  a  literary  man  and 
clearly  becomes  a  litterateur — who  is  now  in  Eu 
rope,  purchasing  choice  olive-wood  for  his  library 
shelves.  A  third  is  in  a  little  cemetery  near 
Schenectady,  where  the  Seneca  grass  fills  the  wind 
with  its  old-time  scent  all  summer  long. 

The  Doctor  climbed,  the  long  dark  sweep  of  three 
stairs,  and  entered  Hathaway 's  tiny  room,  where 
the  yellow  walls  were  covered  with  water-color 
sketches.  There  were  other  sketches  tied  up  in 
a  bundle,  and  the  open  trunk  was  evidently  in  proc 
ess  of  packing.  The  Doctor  saw  it  and  smiled. 
He  had  been  a  boy,  and  had  discounted  Fate,  in 
his  time. 

Hathaway  looked  haggard  and  tired;  but  his 
eyes  were  brighter,  for  the  Doctor  had  sent  him 
a  cheery  note  from  Washington,  and  his  sky  had 
begun  to  clear  already.  Still,  he  was  very  humble 
and  gentle,  and  his  humility  and  submission 
seemed  strangely  out  of  keeping  with  his  bright, 
aggressive  youth. 

He  gave  the  Doctor  his  one  chair,  and  sat  on  the 
bed,  which  was  not  yet  made  up,  while  he  listened 
to  the  report.  He  thanked  his  friend  gratefully 
and  simply ;  but  his  cheerfulness  did  not  come  back 
to  him.  He  went  over  his  story  again,  and  the 
Doctor  learned  of  a  number  of  palliative  facts 
which  the  boy  had  been  too  proud  to  adduce  in  his 
own  defense  while  his  fate  was  in  the  balance. 

When  it  was  done,  the  Doctor  sat  looking  at  the 
young  man,  as  he  lay  half-stretched-out  on  the 


THE  MIDGE  299 

tumbled  bed.  Neither  spoke  for  a  while,  and  then 
Hathaway  said,  staring  hard  at  the  small  pillow, 
out  of  which  he  was  trying  to  pluck  a  feather : 

"I  suppose,  after  this,  sir,  that  you'll  object — 
that  is,  that  you  won't  want — that  you  had  rather 
I  wouldn't  see  Miss  Lois — Miss  Talbot." 

The  Doctor  rose,  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
trousers  pockets,  and  stood  looking  down  at  his 
boots. 

"No,"  he  said,  after  a  while,  drawing  in  his 
breath  through  his  closed  lips,  and  speaking 
thoughtfully :  "no,  my  boy,  I  had  rather  you  would 
see  her.  That  is,  if  it 's  going  to  prevent  you  from 
seeing — the  kind  of  thing  you  have  seen." 

"You're  too — too  devilish  good  to  me,  Dr. 
Peters,"  cried  the  boy. 

"Nonsense,"  said  the  Doctor,  absent-mindedly. 
He  was  thinking  how  the  Midge  and  he  between 
them  could  be  of  help  to  young  Hathaway. 

"Do  you,  don't  you  think — perhaps  I  ought — " 
the  young  man  began,  stammering.  The  Doctor 
smiled. 

"I  think  not,  Hathaway,"  he  said:  "there's  no 
reason  why  she  should  ever  know  anything  about 
it.  It's  closed  and  done  with  now,  and  you  know 
more  than  you  did,  and  we  might  as  well  drop 
the  subject.  Besides" — his  face  grew  grave — 
"women  can  not  be  made  to  look  at  these  things  as 
men  do.  You  don't  want  to  think  of  it."  He 
grew  graver  still  as  he  considered  the  possibility. 
He  knew  the  Midge's  code  of  honor — his  own, 
passed  through  the  close,  small  filter  of  a  woman's 


300  THE  MIDGE 

ignorant  purity.  He  shook  his  head  and  put  the 
question  aside.  "Come  around  to-morrow  even 
ing,"  he  said:  "I  shall  probably  have  heard  from 
Washington  by  that  time. ' ' 

When  Hathaway  came  around  that  next  even 
ing,  the  Doctor  had  heard  from  Washington. 
General  Beecham  wrote  that  Mr.  Hathaway  would 
be  permitted  to  resign,  without  further  investiga 
tion  into  the  charges  already  preferred,  and  that 
Senor  Garcia  had  been  informed  that  if  he  was 
wise  he  would  refrain  from  pressing  his  demands, 
and  would  thus  avoid  certain  inquiries  which  our 
representatives  would  otherwise  be  instructed  to 
make  into  his  financial  transactions  with  certain 
gentlemen  in  the  naval  service  of  the  United 
States. 

The  letter  enclosed  to  Captain  Peters  an  item 
from  a  newspaper  of  1864,  giving  an  account  of 
the  erection  of  a  tablet  in  the  college  chapel  at 
Williamstown,  to  the  memory  of  Lieutenant  Buel 
Beecham,  the  gallant  young  soldier,  who  fell  in 
the  Battle  of  the  Wilderness — a  tribute  from  his 
affectionate  classmates. 


As  he  was  on  his  way  home  from  Clinton  Place, 
the  Doctor  met  Father  Dube,  slowly  pacing  down 
past  the  dreary  gray  front  of  the  University  build 
ing,  which  looked,  that  dull  winter  day,  more  than 
ever  like  some  huge  pasteboard  toy. 

The  two  men  greeted  each  other  warmly,  for 
they  had  not  met  often  of  late. 


THE  MIDGE  301 

"I  have  not  seen  you  in  an  age,"  said  the 
Father,  pressing  Doctor  Peters 's  hand.  ' '  Give  me 
news  of  yourself,  and  of  the  little  one.  She  is  not 
married  yet,  eh?" 

"No,"  replied  the  Doctor,  uneasily;  "I  can't 
find  any  man  good  enough  for  her." 

"No,"  assented  Father  Dube;  "I  know  but  one, 
and  he  is — too  modest." 

His  eyes  made  his  meaning  clear.  The  Doctor 
flushed  hotly.  Dube  laid  a  large  hand  on  his 
shoulder. 

"Why  should  I  not  say  it,"  he  remonstrated, 
kindly.  "I  am  sure  it  would  be  for  the  best,  for 
both  of  you.  It  is  only  we  priests  who  ought  not 
to  marry.  For  you  others,  it  is  a  duty." 

"You  oughtn't  to  talk  in  that  way  to  a  man  of 
my  age,  Dube,"  said  the  Doctor.  He  was  awk 
ward  and  uncomfortable,  and  conscious  of  him 
self. 

"Of  your  age?  What  is  your  age?  You  are 
forty— forty-five?" 

"Forty-six." 

"Bah!  what  is  that?  You  are  young — you  are 
strong;  you  lead  a  good  life — you  are  young.  I 
am  sixty-four.  It  is  not  so  terrible  to  be  sixty- 
four.  Why  should  you  not  marry?  Why  not? 
Will  some  stranger — the  first  boy  you  meet — will 
he  be  so  kind  to  her  as  you?  Ah,  well,  I  have 
said  enough.  You  will  not  come  to  me  when  you 
marry.  But  I  will  bless  you  all  the  same.  Good 
bye,  my  friend." 

The  Doctor  walked  rapidly  across  the  Park. 


302  THE  MIDGE 

He  felt  like  a  boy,  like  a  fool,  but  his  heart  was 
beating  fast,  and  he  was  saying  to  himself,  while 
his  cheeks  burnt : 

"Why  not?— why  not?" 


XV 

WHY  not?  He  had  refused  to  entertain 
the  thought ;  he  had  turned  it  away  from 
him  and  bade  it  begone.  But  it  had 
been  brought  back  to  him,  and  now  that  he  was 
forced  to  let  it  in,  and  to  look  it  in  the  face,  what 
was  there  about  it  that  should  make  him  refuse  it 
hospitality?  It  was  not  a  mean  or  unworthy 
thought — it  seemed,  indeed,  when  once  he  looked 
at  it  face  to  face,  simple,  natural  and  beautiful. 
After  all,  wherein  was  it  strange?  When  a  man 
and  a  woman  loved  each  other,  they  married. 
And  did  not  he  love  this  woman,  and  did  not  she 
love  him?  Only — was  it  with  the  same  love? 

Ah,  he  was  gone.  From  the  moment  that  he 
asked  himself  that  question,  and  that  the  answer 
ing  doubt  came  with  its  sudden  chill  to  his  heart, 
the  Doctor  had  slipped  from  the  safe  ground  of 
pure  reason,  and  was  groping  about  in  that  dim 
wild  dreamland  of  uncertainty  in  which,  since  time 
began,  every  lover  has  walked  his  appointed  time ; 
in  which  every  lover  shall  walk  until  time  shall 
end.  There  are  no  exemptions  or  exceptions, 
there  are  no  classes  or  conditions  for  those  who 
enter  that  strange  limbo.  Great  or  small,  wise  or 
foolish,  they  wander  hither  and  thither  in  the  mist, 
led  by  flickering  lights  and  great  revealing  flashes, 

303 


304  THE  MIDGE 

cast  down  in  deathly  darkness,  and  wakened  again 
by  a  warm  glow  on  the  far  horizon.  And  so  they 
must  wander,  until  they  go  out  of  the  place  by  one 
of  two  gates.  And  for  those  that  go  out  by  the 
one  gate,  the  light  of  the  morning  is  on  their  faces ; 
and  for  those  that  go  out  by  the  other  gate,  may 
God  have  pity  on  them ! 

He  was  no  better  off  now,  for  all  his  years  and 
his  brains  and  his  doctoring  and  his  soldiering, 
than  the  veriest  boy  that  ever  tied  his  heart  to  a 
ribbon  or  went  at  night  to  look  at  a  common  brick- 
and-mortar  house  because  of  a  woman  sleeping 
somewhere  in  it. 

He  had  to  ask  the  same  question  of  Pate,  and 
to  ask  it  with  the  same  knowledge  that  the  answer 
could  not  be  affected  by  any  will  or  wish  of  his  of 
the  woman  he  loved.  It  was  to  be,  or  it  was  not  to 
be,  and  he,  and  she,  perhaps,  must  wait  for  the 
revelation. 

He  was  at  his  own  door  before  he  knew  it,  and 
he  found  himself  wondering  how  he  should  meet 
the  Midge.  Two  minutes  later,  he  found  himself 
meeting  her  and  talking  with  her  calmly  and 
quietly,  without  embarrassment,  without  confu 
sion,  with  no  sense  of  awkwardness  whatever. 

For  the  first  time  he  looked  at  this  comrade  of 
years,  at  this  child  grown  a  woman  under  his  care ; 
and  knew  that  he  wanted  her  for  his  wife.  As  far 
as  he  could  make  out,  he  ought  to  have  been  ner 
vous  and  constrained.  Perhaps  he  ought  to  have 
been  ashamed  of  himself.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  he  was  not  nervous,  or  constrained,  or 


THE  MIDGE  305 

ashamed.  He  did  not  understand  the  change  in 
his  own  attitude;  but  he  was  conscious  of  it.  An 
hour  before,  he  had  blushed  at  the  mere  idea. 
Now  he  was  as  shameless  about  it  as  if  he  had 
been  King  Cophetua  and  she  a  beggar-maid  with 
no  choice  in  the  matter. 

In  truth,  as  he  looked  at  her  and  listened  to  her, 
he  was  aware  within  himself  of  a  certain  feeling 
of  triumphant  superiority.  It  was  for  him  to  take 
this  dear  and  lovely  creature  by  the  hand  and  to 
say  to  her :  "  You  thought  that  this  was  all — this 
sweet  companionship  and  tender  affection.  But 
there  is  more — infinitely  more  and  infinitely  bet 
ter,  and  I  will  lead  you  to  it." 

The  Midge  went  to  bed  early  that  evening,  as 
though  in  obedience  to  some  unspoken  wish  of  his. 
He  wanted  to  be  alone;  to  "have  a  think, "  and 
he  had  it,  by  the  fire,  far  into  the  night.  He  had 
looked  forward  to  this  hour  of  self-counsel,  but 
when  it  came,  it  was  not  what  he  had  expected  it 
would  be.  He  had  thought  that  he  would  reason 
out  with  himself  the  question  of  his  right  to  love 
the  Midge.  He  found  that  he  regarded  that  ques 
tion  as  settled;  that  he  looked  upon  it  as  an  ac 
cepted  premise,  upon  which  he  could  base — upon 
which  he  was  basing  his  calculations  for  the  future. 
He  was  surprised  at  this ;  he  had  not  yet  realized 
that  when  a  man  is  in  love,  his  intellectual  facul 
ties  are  handed  over  to  the  control  of  the  mys 
terious  power  within  him  which  takes  him  in 
charge  and  makes  an  inspired  fool  of  him;  and 
that  he  himself  does  not  know  how  he  will  argue 


306  THE  MIDGE 

out  the  simplest  problem  in  the  privacy  of  his 
own  mind.  But  it  seemed  to  him  that,  in  some 
mysterious  way,  he  had  quite  settled  this  one 
thing.  Indeed,  if  he  thought  at  all  of  the  past,  it 
was  only  to  try  to  trace  this  new  love  back  over 
the  lines  of  the  old;  to  identify  the  two,  and  to 
prove  to  himself  that,  they  had  always  been  the 
same;  that  from  the  first  he  had  loved  her  with 
this  very  love,  that  had  only  been  disguised  as 
something  like  parental  affection  until  the  time 
came  for  its  disclosure  as  a  greater  and  higher 
thing. 

But  most  of  his  thoughts — which  were  not 
thoughts,  he  found ;  rather  imaginings — dealt  with 
the  present  and  the  future. 

One  idea  came  to  him,  at  first  with  a  chill,  then 
with  a  sudden  glow  of  pleased  and  suggestive  an 
ticipation — that  she  did  not  know  all  this :  that  she 
must  be  taught' to  love — must  be  wooed.  He  must 
begin  a  courtship.  Indeed,  he  felt  as  though  he 
had  yet  to  be  introduced  to  the  woman  he  had  to 
court. 

Just  here,  the  Doctor's  memory  took  an  odd 
backward  twist.  He  remembered  certain  boyish 
thoughts  of  a  certain  Alida  Jansen,  and  he  under 
stood  now  why  he  had  been  glad  when  he  woke  up 
in  his  little  attic  bed-room,  and  thought  that  sing 
ing-school  was  to  be  held  that  night. 

The  courtship  began  the  next  day,  but  not  quite 
in  the  way  the  Doctor  had  planned.  He  was  much 
surprised  to  find  that  his  manner  toward  the 
Midge  had  already  changed,  unconsciously  and 


THE  MIDGE  307 

involuntarily.  It  distinctly  asserted  a  masterful 
superiority. 

Beyond  this,  he  did  not  make  any  active  move. 
And  for  the  next  few  days,  in  fact,  for  the  next 
few  weeks,  he  had  business  other  than  his  own  to 
attend  to — and  it  was  his  custom  to  attend  to  other 
people's  business  before  his  own.  Mr.  Paul  Hath 
away,  now  out  of  the  navy,  had  to  be  established 
in  life  as  a  self-supporting  citizen.  This  was 
done,  after  a  little  while,  more  successfully  than 
the  Doctor  could  have  hoped.  The  sympathies  of 
Parker  Prout  and  Jack  Wilder  being  enlisted, 
Hathawa'y  sold  some  sketches  in  Nassau  Street, 
and  got  some  odd  jobs  on  the  Morning  Record, 
which  was  now  "illustrated,"  with  outline  cuts, 
conceived  in  the  utmost  simplicity  of  art. 

But  all  this  involved  a  great  deal  of  consulta 
tion  and  discussion  and  speculation  among  the 
three  of  them — for  the  Midge  was  at  once  called 
into  their  councils.  Hathaway  called  almost 
every  day,  and  they  held  long  debates  over  the 
smallest  move  he  took.  The  Midge  was  a  modest 
authority  in  matters  of  art,  and  the  Doctor  was 
general  business-adviser.  ;The  Doctor  felt  a  par 
ticular  pride  in  acquitting  himself  well  of  his 
duties.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  doing  him 
self  credit  in  the  eyes  of  the  Midge,  and  he  was 
proud  and  pleased  when  he  conducted  Mr.  Hath 
away  's  affairs  to  a  fortunate  issue. 

And  Hathaway 's  affairs  certainly  flourished. 
Everybody  pronounced  his  sketches  clever,  and  his 
draughtmanship  worthy  of  an  older  hand.  Parker 


308  THE  MIDGE 

Prout  said  he  was  going  to  be  a  great  artist,  and 
there  was  no  doubt  whatever  that  he  was  facile, 
adaptive  and  intelligent.  Before  the  spring  was 
far  advanced,  he  was  earning  a  modest  living  for 
himself,  and  had  repaid  a  small  loan  from  the 
Doctor. 

So  encouraging  were  Mr.  Hathaway 's  prospects 
that  in  March  he  engaged  in  a  grand  competition. 
The  New  York  Monthly  proposed  to  send  a  ship 
around  the  world ;  and  a  famous  writer  was  to 
recount  the  history  of  the  voyage.  The  illustra 
tions  were  to  be  made  by  a  famous  artist,  assisted 
by  a  novice  in  art.  All  novices  in  art  were  invited 
to  compete  for  the  honor,  by  sending  sketches  to 
a  chosen  committee  of  artists.  The  only  condi 
tions  were  that  they  should  be  native  born  and 
under  thirty  years  of  age.  With  both  of  these 
conditions  Mr.  Hathaway  could  comply.  He  sent 
in  his  sketches,  and  in  due  time  was  notified  that 
he  was  one  of  five  most  promising  contestants,  and 
that  the  prize  would  be  awarded  to  the  one  of  these 
best  qualified,  by  nature  and  training,  for  the 
work.  Mr.  Hathaway  presented  himself  before 
the  committee  with  a  fluttering  but  confident  heart. 

This  came  about  toward  the  end  of  the  month, 
and  the  breath  of  April  was  in  the  air  when,  one 
warm  evening,  the  Doctor  and  the  Midge  sat  be 
fore  the  ghost  of  a  fire.  He  felt  honestly  and 
innocently  proud  of  having  been  able  to  help 
Hathaway,  and  he  could  hold  it  in  no  longer. 

"I  think  our  young  friend  is  pretty  fairly 
launched — Hathaway,  I  mean,"  he  said. 


THE  MIDGE  309 

The  Midge  was  sewing,  bending  low  over  her 
work,  so  that  the  gaslight  fell  on  her  dark  hair. 
She  paused  to  give  a  woman's  speculative,  ob 
servant  look  at  the  stuff  in  her  lap  before  she  re 
sponded. 

"You  think  it  is  all  right  for  him — for  the 
future?"  she  said. 

"I  think  it's  a  sure  thing  for  him — he's  almost 
certain  to  get  it." 

1 1  Then  he  will  go  away  ? '  ' 

"Why,  yes.  But  it's  only  for  a  year  or  so. 
He'll  enjoy  the  voyage." 

The  Midge  said  nothing. 

"It's  a  grand  opportunity  for  any  young  man," 
he  went  on,  meditatively;  "it  will  be  the  making 
of  him  in  his — his  business." 

"Is  it  not  dangerous?"  hazarded  the  young 
woman. 

The  Doctor  fairly  laughed. 

"My  dear  child!"  he  remonstrated,  "after  a 
man  has  been  knocking  about  for  years  in  one  of 
those  old  tubs  that  we  call  men-of-war!  Why 
he  '11  think  he 's  safer  than  he 's  ever  been  before  in 
his  life." 

Dr.  Peters  filled  and  lit  his  pipe  before  the 
Midge  spoke  again. 

"Evert,"  she  said,  "I  do  not  wish  to  ask  too 
much,  or  what  I  should  not.  But  there  was  some 
trouble  that  he  was  in — Mr.  Hathaway — when  you 
went  to  Washington.  It  was  trouble,  was  it  not  I ' ' 

"Why,  yes,"  he  answered,  doubtfully. 

"I  do  not  want  to   know,"   she  hurried   on, 


310  THE  MIDGE 

1 1  what  it  was — I  do  not  ask  that.  But  was  it — was 
it  something — it  was  nothing  against  him! — noth 
ing  wrong." 

The  Doctor  had  been  prepared  for  this,  in  some 
sort,  from  the  first ;  hut  it  cost  him  a  quick  mental 
wrench  to  get  his  conscience  and  his  logic  in  accord 
as  he  replied,  with  great  firmness  and  decision : 

"No,  my  dear." 

He  held  himself  justified  in  saying  this.  What 
ever  wrong  had  been  done,  it  was  repented  of, 
atoned  for,  and  would  never  be  repeated.  To  the 
Doctor  it  was  as  though  it  had  not  been.  What 
right  had  he  even  to  speak  of  a  cancelled  sin  as 
a  present  fact? 

"No,"  he  said  once  more:  "if  there  had  been 
anything  of  that  kind,  my  dear — anything  to  make 
us  alter  our  relations  toward  the  lad,  I  should 
have  told  you.  But  there  was  not.  He  was  in 
discreet,  I  suppose;  but — well,  we're  all  more  or 
less  fools,  all  the  humans  made  on  any  pattern 
known  up  to  date;  and  he  isn't  any  such  startling 
variety  of  fool  that  we  need  to  be  too  particular 
with  him.  No,  no,  he's  a  good  boy,  my  dear." 

"I  am  glad,"  she  said  softly,  resting  her  chin 
on  her  hand  as  she  looked  into  the  fire.  "That 
there  was  nothing  bad — that  is  well.  I  could  not 
bear  it." 

She  spoke  with  emphasis.  The  Doctor,  still 
smoking  meditatively,  nodded  approvingly. 

"I  know  how  you  feel  about  those  things,  my 
love,"  he  said. 

She  began  again,  a  little  nervously. 


THE  MIDGE  311 

"  Evert,  it — it — you  do  not  think  it  strange  that 
I  ask  such  a  question  about  his  private  affairs? 
He  would  not  think  it  was  something  I  had  no 
right  to  ask  about  V9 

"I  should  think  he'd  feel  very  much  flattered  at 
the  interest  you  take  in  him/'  the  Doctor  replied, 
reassuringly.  "Indeed,  I  think  you  have  been 
particularly  friendly  and  kind  to  him,  Midge.  He 
ought  to  be  grateful  to  you." 

She  rose  quickly,  and  came  and  seated  herself 
on  the  arm  of  his  chair. 

"No,  it  is  you  who  have  been  good  to  him — you 
need  not  tell  me — I  know  it.  You  are  good  to 
everybody,  Evert."  She  bent  over  and  kissed 
him.  He  smiled  with  a  deep  gratification.  It  was 
this  praise  that  he  had  wanted  beyond  any  other 
reward  for  well-doing.  "You  have  done  every- 
thing  for  him,  Evert." 

' '  No,  my  dear, ' '  he  corrected  her,  with  a  pleased 
generosity,  "he's  done  pretty  well  everything  for 
himself.  You  can't  do  much  for  a  man.  He's  got 
to  do  the  doing,  in  the  end.  Hathaway 's  a  fine 
fellow.  I  hope  he  '11  come  back  from  this  trip  and 
settle  down  and  make  a  position  for  himself,  right 
here  where  we  can  see  him.  And  we  shan't  be 
sorry  that  we  gave  him  a  lift  when  he  first  needed 
it,  shall  we,  little  one?"  He  took  her  disengaged 
hand  in  his.  The  other  fluttered  to  and  fro  a 
dangling  trail  of  fancy-work.  The  Doctor  glanced 
at  the  flimsy  stuff  with  careless  interest,  and 
smiled.  He  thought  how  happy  he  could  be,  in  all 
the  years  to  come,  sitting  thus  by  the  fire  and 


312  THE  MIDGE 

seeing  her  work  inexplicable  things  in  soft  mate 
rials  of  which  he  did  not  even  know  the  names. 

She  did  not  answer  his  question  directly;  but 
rose,  freeing  herself  with  a  motion  that  was  almost 
a  caress,  and  returned  to  her  seat. 

"You  are  too  good  to  everybody,  Evert,"  she 
said,  giving  her  head  a  sad  little  shake:  "you  do 
not  know  it;  but  you  are  too  good.  Sometimes 
you  make  me  wish  you  were  not  so  good.' 

The  Doctor  smiled.  "I'm  not  so  good,  Midge," 
he  said.  "You  may  find  me  considerable  of  a 
bother  yet.  But  I'm  glad  I've  been  able  to  be  of 
some  use  to  that  boy  Hathaway.  And  I  rather 
think  his  future's  settled — that  is,  in  a  business 
way.  I'd  like  to  see  him  safely  married,  though. 
He  needs  it." 

"Why  do  you  think  he  needs  it?"  asked  the 
Midge,  quietly. 

The  heap  of  glowing  coals  in  the  grate  fell  with 
a  little  crash  into  a  flickering  crater.  The  Doctor 
stopped  to  pile  up  the  fire  before  he  replied. 

"Everybody  needs  it,  my  dear.  "When  it's  a 
good  thing  at  all,  it's  the  best  thing  in  the  world. 
I  should  like  to  have  that  boy  have  a  fireside — " 
he  bent  over  and  poked  vigorously  at  the  half- 
kindled  cannel — "a  fireside,  a  fireside — that's  the 
thing.  I  don't  mean  only  a  grate,  and  coal  and 
stuff — there's  a  woman  goes  with  every  real,  genu 
ine  fireside.  That's  what  he  wants — that's  what 
— 'most  everybody  else  wants — a  woman.  A 
woman,  Midge.  A  man's  only  half  a  man  if  one 
half  of  him  ain't  a  woman.  That's  one  of  the 


THE  MIDGE  313 

truths  a  man's  got  to  learn;  and  I've  noticed" — 
he  smiled  at  the  fire — "that  Providence  generally 
provides  him  with  a  teacher." 

He  sat,  bending  forward,  playing  with  the  poker, 
patting  the  lumps  of  cannel  till  they  gently  cracked 
into  clean  fissures  that  coaxed  the  wandering 
flames.  He  was  talking  as  though  he  were  talking 
to  himself.  The  Midge  rose  abruptly,  gathering 
up  her  work,  and  moved  toward  the  door  of  her 
room. 

"I'm  tired,  Evert,"  she  said,  in  the  hushed  un 
dertone  that  women  use  when  their  thoughts  are 
apart  from  their  speech.  *  *  I  think  I  '11  go  to  bed. ' ' 

For  a  moment  he  made  no  effort  to  detain  her ; 
then  he  stretched  out  his  hand  and  said : 

"Aren't  you  going  to  bid  me  good-night?" 

She  turned  back  quickly — her  hand  was  on  the 
handle  of  the  door — and  kissed  him  on  the  fore 
head.  Then  she  withdrew,  with  a  pleasant  rus 
tling  of  garments.  He  sat  still,  smiling  at  the  fire, 
until  the  sudden  sharp  ring  of  the  door-bell  below 
fell  on  his  ear.  He  heard  it  sleepily,  sitting  back 
and  listening  with  a  pleased,  absent-minded  smile 
— pleased  at  his  own  thoughts.  Vaguely  he  heard 
some  one  stumble  up  the  stairs ;  then  there  was  a 
knock  at  the  door,  and  he  rose  to  take  a  crumpled 
note  from  a  sleepy  messenger-boy. 

The  note  was  this : 

"March  31st. 
"My  dear  Doctor: — 

"I  have  got  the  appointment.  The  committee  accepted  me 
without  discussion.  And  now  I  have  something  to  say  to  you 


314  THE  MIDGE 

that  will  give  you  pain;  but  I  cannot  help  it.  I  do  not  feel  that 
I  have  the  right  to  speak  to  her  without  your  permission;  but  I 
want  to  come  tomorrow,  early,  to  ask  Lois  to  be  my  wife.  I 
know  what  this  must  be  to  you — but  will  you  forgive  me  if  I 
take  her  from  you?  I  know  that  you  look  upon  her  as  a  daugh 
ter.  I  know  how  selfish  I  must  seem,  and,  believe  me,  I  know 
what  I  owe  to  you.  I  feel  sure  that  she  will  say  Yes — and  if  I 
could  feel  as  sure  that  you  would  give  us  both  your  blessing,  I 
should  be  happy. 

"Gratefully  and  truly  yours, 

"PAUL  HATHAWAY." 


XVI 

HE  heard  the  sleepy  messenger-boy  thump  his 
doubtful  way  down  the  stairs,  as  he  read 
the  last  lines  of  the  note. 

Of  course.  Why  had  he  not  known  it  before — 
why  had  he  not  seen  it  before!  He  felt  as  if  he 
had  been  asleep  a  long  time,  getting  a  respite  from 
the  burden  of  some  awful  truth,  and  had  suddenly 
awakened  to  a  chill  dawning  of  inevitable  con 
sciousness. 

He  thought  of  it  with  a  horror-stricken  sense  of 
shame,  as  of  some  omitted  duty.  What  had  he 
done — what  had  he  been  about  to  do?  He  had 
meant  to  ask  this  woman  to  be  his  wife — this 
woman  who  loved  another  man.  It  came  to  him 
with  a  ghastly,  cold  clearness  that  she  would  have 
struggled  with  herself,  would  have  fought  down 
her  love  for  duty's  sake,  and  would  have  married 
him,  loving  this  other  man,  to  be  miserable  all 
life  long. 

The  cold  draught  from  the  still  open  door  blew 
in  on  him.  He  was  dimly  conscious  of  it;  but  it 
seemed  nothing  to  him  beside  the  deeper  chill  that 
had  penetrated  to  his  inmost  being,  paralyzing  his 
soul.  In  a  blind,  mechanical  way  he  rose  and 
moved  across  the  room  and  shut  the  door.  He 
thought  that  he  staggered;  but  he  was  not  sure. 

315 


316  THE  MIDGE 

His  consciousness  of  himself  seemed  far  removed 
from  the  flesh-and-blood  automaton  that  got  up 
from  its  seat  and  went  to  shut  a  door  and  stop  a 
draught. 

He  had  held  the  letter  in  his  hand  all  the  time. 
It  was  in  his  hand  when  he  sat  down  again.  With 
an  absolutely  involuntary  motion,  he  raised  it  to 
the  level  of  his  eyes  two  or  three  times,  and  each 
time  his  eyes  wandered  away,  seeing  nothing  save 
some  most  commonplace  and  meaningless  bit  of 
their  surroundings — a  corner  of  the  mantelpiece, 
the  bow  of  the  ribbon  that  tied  the  window-cur 
tains  back,  his  pipe,  lying  on  the  table,  half  full  of 
lifeless  gray  ashes. 

He  felt  this  an  unpardonable  weakness,  and 
pulled  himself  together,  with  scowling  brows.  He 
read  the  letter  half  through,  and  then  had  to  read 
it  over  again.  He  had  understood  the  words,  as 
each  one  had  come  under  his  eye;  but  they  had 
been  only  words.  They  had  meant  nothing  be 
yond  signs  and  sounds.  He  read  them  now  with  a 
stern  determination  to  drive  their  sense  into  his 
head. 

He  distinctly  felt,  as  he  began,  that  he  was  doing 
something  hopeless,  futile;  a  mere  makeshift  to 
fill  up  the  time  until  he  could  command  himself. 
But  he  had  not  read  the  third  sentence  through 
before  his  heart  sprung  up  in  him  with  a  wild 
intoxication  of  joy.  What  was  it,  after  all  ?  This 
boy  wanted  to  marry  the  woman  he  himself  loved. 
Well,  what  of  that?  Had  he  not  been  warned  of 
it  I  Was  it  not  to  be  expected  f  Did  it  follow  that 


THE  MIDGE  317 

she  loved  him?  What  reason  had  he  to  suppose 
that  any  such  absurd,  wild  thing  was  possible? 
He  passed  his  hand  over  his  eyes,  like  a  man  who 
tries  to  clear  away  a  dream.  He  must  have  been 
mad  to  think  of  it.  Faintly  and  feebly,  he  laughed 
aloud  to  himself,  and  sighed  in  weary  relief.  He 
had  been  nervous;  that  was  it;  he  had  dwelt  so 
long  and  so  earnestly  on  this  one  thought  that  he 
had  grown  morbid  and  excitable,  and  he  had  lost 
his  self-control.  It  was  an  impossibility,  an  ab 
surdity,  and  he  must  have  been  strangely  weak  to 
consider  it  at  all. 

Then  he  reflected  that  he  would  have  to  consider 
it,  and  this  brought  a  certain  cheering  strength 
to  him.  To  have  something  to  reason  out,  some 
thing  to  employ  his  faculties,  gave  him  a  hold  on 
himself.  He  got  up  again,  and  walked  up  and 
down  the  room,  and  tried  to  think  it  all  over. 
What  did  he  know  positively?  That  Paul  Hath 
away  was  in  love  with  the  Midge ;  that  Hathaway 
thought  the  Midge  loved  him.  Did  she  love  Hath 
away?  He  could  not  believe  that  he  could  have 
been  so  blind  as  not  to  have  seen  it  if  she  did.  Yet, 
he  remembered,  and  his  heart  sank,  he  had  been  so 
blind  as  not  to  see  that  Hathaway  was  in  love. 
Had  he  not  been  blind  in  every  direction?  For 
the  idea  had  been  suggested  to  him,  weeks  before. 
But  then  he  remembered  how  that  idea  had  been 
suggested,  and  how  he  had  put  it  out  of  his  mind 
entirely,  as  an  unworthy  thought.  He  had  set  it 
aside  out  of  pure  loyalty  to  young  Hathaway.  He 
had  refused  even  to  think  that  this  boy,  whom  he 


318  THE  MIDGE 

had  made  his  friend,  could  dream  of  stealing  away 
from  him  the  woman  in  whom  his  life  was  wrapped 
up. 

And  now  he  had  it,  in  Hathaway 's  own  hand, 
that  this  inconceivable  thing  was  a  positive  fact. 
He  grew  hot  with  sudden  anger.  What  right  had 
this  pink-and-white  boy  to  come  in  with  his  boyish 
love,  his  boyish  passion,  his  boyish,  arrogant  hope, 
to  dare  to  think  of  taking  this  woman  from  him? 
And  suppose — suppose  she  loved  the  boy?  Well, 
again,  what  of  it?  Should  a  boy-and-girl  fancy 
such  as  that  weigh  against  a  man's  love — his  own 
love,  grown  from  the  smallest  beginnings,  grown 
naturally  into  a  great,  consuming  passion,  some 
thing  that,  sooner  or  later,  however  she  might  mis 
take  herself  now,  she  must  answer  to? 

He  grew  hotter  and  hotter  as  he  walked  up  and 
down.  Anger  gave  him  a  strange  fluency  of 
thought.  He  saw  with  vivid  clearness  how  he  had 
loved  the  child  and  the  woman  with  a  love  that 
had  changed  not  in  nature,  but  only  in  growth. 
He  did  not  think  of  what  he  had  done  for  her ;  but 
only  of  what  he  had  tried  to  be  to  her — how  he  had 
studied  her  tastes,  her  capacities,  her  tendencies; 
how  he  had  conscientiously  tried  to  teach  her  the 
best  that  he  knew,  to  make  of  her  the  best  that  was 
in  her  to  be. 

And  now  this  boy — this  Hathaway — came  in 
smug  and  smiling,  and  self-complacent,  with  his 
little  sixpenny,  sentimental  fancy — this  fellow  who 
a  year  or  two  before  had  been  swearing  love 
and  promising  marriage  to  the  common  coquette 


THE  MIDGE  319 

of  a  South  American  naval  station.  Great  God! 
but  he  would  put  an  end  to  this  profanation — he, 
an  honest  man,  with  but  one  love  to  his  life. 
Whatever  pain  it  cost  her,  for  the  moment,  what 
ever  she  or  any  one  might  think  of  it,  at  least  this 
thing  should  not  be.  He  knew,  to  an  absolute 
certainty,  that  he  had  only  to  tell  her  what  he 
knew,  and  Paul  Hathaway  would  go  out  of  her  life 
forever.  He  knew  she  would  never  forgive  such 
an  outrage  against  love  and  honor.  He  knew 
what  she  was  and  what  he  himself  had  taught  her, 
and  that  she  could  never  forgive  as  he — fool  that 
he  was — had  forgiven. 

He  remembered  what  she  had  once  said.  "Yes, 
I  do  belong  to  you,  Evert,  1  will  do  whatever  you 
say,  now  and  always." 

He  strode  wildly  across  the  room  to  her  door, 
meaning  to  throw  it  open — it  was  never  locked — 
to  go  to  her  bedside,  as  he  had  gone  many  a  time 
before  to  watch  over  her  in  some  childish  sickness, 
and  there  to  tell  her  the  truth,  and  leave  her  to 
struggle  with  and  kill  whatever  love  she  might 
have  for  this  fellow.  But  he  stopped  suddenly, 
with  his  hand  on  the  door,  every  muscle  in  him 
cold  and  quivering,  and  he  knew  that  he  could  not 
go  into  that  room.  Until  that  moment  he  had  not 
known  how  he  loved.  He  had  thought  of  his  love 
as  a  simple  and  natural  affection;  the  growth  of 
years ;  a  mere  development  of  an  earlier  fatherly 
tenderness.  He  knew  now  that  it  was  the  love  of 
a  man  who  wants  a  woman  for  his  wife;  and  he 
knew  that  never,  unless  this  woman  were  his  wife, 


320  THE  MIDGE 

could  he  cross  the  sill  of  her  chamber,  and  look 
upon  her  as  she  lay  asleep. 

He  turned  back  and  went  to  the  window,  and 
looked  out.  It  was  faintly  misty.  The  light  of 
the  morning  sun  was  somewhere  high  in  the  heav 
ens,  and  its  dull  refraction  lit  up  all  things  with 
an  even,  cold  light  that  had  no  life  in  it.  He  saw 
the  great  vacant  Square,  and  the  broad,  red  brick 
houses  opposite.  Their  marble  facings  stared  out, 
a  dull,  damp  white. 

If  the  body  of  your  dearest  friend  lay  in  your 
house,  there  would  be  times  when  it  was  nothing 
but  a  corpse  to  you — something  lifeless  and  not 
human,  that  claims  a  mocking  identity  with  the 
man  you  loved;  that  is  he,  and  is  not  he.  You 
want  to  get  it  away,  out  of  sight,  this  cold  gray 
thing,  that  must  always  come  between  you  and 
your  remembrance  of  him  you  knew  when  he  lived 
and  breathed  and  moved,  and  had  color  in  his 
cheeks  and  light  in  his  eyes.  A  feeling  akin  to 
this  took  hold  on  the  Doctor  as  he  looked  out  of  the 
window  into  this  dim  foredawn  that  was  not  so 
much  night  as  a  dead  day. 


The  day  came,  misty,  veiled,  and  softly  bright. 
It  woke  up  the  flocks  of  swallows  in  the  great 
Square;  it  put  touches  of  gold  on  the  budding 
branches  of  the  trees;  it  lit  up  the  generous  red 
brick  houses  with  a  rosy  radiance  not  their  own. 
It  found  the  Doctor  still  looking  out  of  the  window, 
with  his  forehead  resting  against  the  frame.  He 


THE  MIDGE  321 

was  weary,  for  it  aroused  him  from  a  sort  of 
stupor ;  and  in  this  stupor,  as  he  half  remembered, 
he  had  thought  over,  in  inconsecutive,  irregular 
moments  of  thought,  the  most  of  his  life — had  seen 
the  Midge  grow  up  by  his  side,  through  childhood, 
girlhood,  to  womanhood  and  to  the  time  of  parting. 
For,  with  a  sudden  comprehension  of  the  nature 
of  his  love  for  her,  there  had  come  a  quick,  instinc 
tive  conviction  that  she  never  had  loved  him  in 
that  way;  that  she  never  could  love  him  in  that 
way.  He  did  not  know  how  he  knew  this ;  but  it 
came  to  him  as  a  fact,  which  he  accepted  as  one 
accepts  the  fact  that  death  has  come  into  the 
house. 

There  were  certain  things  left  for  him  to  do  in  ' 
this  world.  There  was  one  thing  most  prominent 
at  the  moment — to  go  into  his  own  room,  and  lie 
down,  and  sleep,  or  make  some  pretense  of  sleep 
ing,  until  such  time  as  morning  should  begin  for 
other  people.  It  was  one  of  the  things  he  had  to 
do,  and  he  did  it.  All  his  life  long  he  had  done 
the  things  he  had  to  do,  and  this  was  one  of  the 
last  things  that  could  greatly  vex  him  on  this  side 
of  the  grave. 


Two  hours  later  there  was  a  ring  at  the  door 
below  that  awoke  him;  a  sound  of  feet  on  the 
stairs,  and  a  knock  at  the  door  of  his  sitting-room. 
He  heard  Elise  tell  the  visitor  to  wait  for  Miss 
Lodoiska,  and  heard  her  tramping  heavily  around 
to  the  side-door  of  the  Midge's  room. 


322  THE  MIDGE 

He  arose  from  the  bed  on  which  he  was  lying, 
and  made  himself  presentable,  and  went  into  the 
sitting-room.  Paul  Hathaway  was  there,  flushed 
and  excited.  He  shook  hands  with  him,  and  said 
a  few  commonplace  words.  Then  he  heard  a  step 
in  the  next  room,  and  his  heart  leapt  up  to  hear 
it.  The  door  opened,  and  the  Midge  came  out, 
and  he  saw  her  eyes  meet  Paul  Hathaway 's  with 
that  wonderful  lightening  of  love  which  cannot  be 
mistaken. 

"I  haven't  slept  well,  Midge, "  he  said:  "I'm 
going  out  for  a  walk  before  breakfast." 

He  stopped  as  he  went  toward  the  door  to  take 
up  his  hat  and  coat  that  lay  upon  the  sofa. 

"Hathaway,  my  boy "  he  began,  not  quite 

knowing  why  or  how  he  spoke.  The  Midge  ran 
to  kiss  him  a  quick,  impulsive  good-bye,  and  then 
turned  to  Hathaway,  and  the  Doctor  went  out  to 
take  his  walk. 


They  were  married  in  June,  when  Washington 
Square  was  all  one  flush  of  green.  Hathaway 
gave  up  the  voyage  around  the  world.  The  Doc 
tor  made  that  the  only  condition,  in  giving  his  con 
sent.  And  he  himself  so  arranged  matters  that 
compliance  with  the  condition  was  easy.  It  was 
a  quiet  wedding,  in  the  old  sitting-room.  There 
were  only  two  people  present,  beside  the  Doctor — 
Parker  Prout  and  Professor  Mannheim — and  they 
brought  their  wedding  gifts  with  them.  Parker 
Prout  had  one  of  his  own  pictures — a  picture  on 


THE  MIDGE  323 

which  he  had  worked  very  hard — and  Mannheim 
brought  a  stack  of  precious  music — he,  and  no  one 
else,  knew  how  precious  it  was  to  him. 

And  when  it  was  over,  and  they  had  gone  away, 
the  two  of  them,  to  a  certain  little  house  up-town, 
which  the  Doctor  had  inspected  long  ago,  when  he 
himself  thought  of  moving  from  the  rooms  in 
Washington  Place,  he  went  up  stairs  and  looked 
at  the  empty  kitchen — he  had  sent  Elise  out  to  take 
a  half  day's  holiday. 

Then  he  went  into  the  big  pantry.  In  the  corner, 
on  the  shelf,  still  lay  the  crock  in  which  the  Midge 
had  hidden  her  head,  heavy  with  childish  grief, 
years  before.  The  old  stool  stood  before  it.  He 
sat  down  on  it,  and  rested  his  hot  forehead  on  the 
cool  rim  of  the  jar. 

And  that 's  the  end  of  the  story. 


I 


JERSEY  AND   MULBERRY 

FOUND  this  letter  and  comment  in  an  evening 
paper,  some  time  ago,  and  I  cut  the  slip  out 
and  kept  it  for  its  cruelty : 


To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  EVENING . 

SIB:  In  yesterday's  issue  you  took  occasion  to  speak  of  the 
organ-grinding  nuisance,  about  which  I  hope  you  will  let  me  ask 
you  the  following  questions:  Why  must  decent  people  all  over 
town  suffer  these  pestilential  beggars  to  go  about  torturing  our 
senses,  and  practically  blackmailing  the  listeners  into  paying  them 
to  go  away!  Is  it  not  a  most  ridiculous  excuse  on  the  part  of  the 
police,  when  ordered  to  arrest  these  vagrants,  to  tell  a  citizen 
that  the  city  license  exempts  these  public  nuisances  from  arrest! 
Let  me  ask,  Can  the  city  by  any  means  legalize  a  common-law 
misdemeanor?  If  not,  how  can  the  city  authorities  grant  ex 
emption  to  these  sturdy  beggars  and  vagrants  by  their  paying 
for  a  license?  The  Penal  Code  and  the  Code  of  Criminal  Pro 
cedure,  it  seems,  provide  for  the  punishment  of  gamblers,  dive- 
keepers,  and  other  disorderly  persons,  among  whom  organ-grinders 
fall,  as  being  people  who  beg,  and  exhibit  for  money,  and  create 
disorder.  If  this  is  so,  why  can  the  police  not  be  forced  to  in 
tervene  and  forbid  them  their  outrageous  behavior? — for  these 
fellows  do  not  only  not  know  or  care  for  the  observance  of  the 
city  ordinance,  which  certainly  is  binding  on  them,  but,  relying 
on  a  fellow-feeling  of  vulgarity  with  the  mob,  resist  all  attempts 
made  to  remove  them  from  the  exercise  of  their  most  fearful  beg 
gary,  which  is  not  even  tolerated  any  longer  at  Naples. 

K. 

NEW  YORK,  February  20th. 

[Our  correspondent's  appeal  should  be  addressed  to  the  Board 
of  Aldermen  and  the  Mayor.  They  consented  to  the  licensing  of 

the  grinders  in  the  face  of  a  popular  protest. — ED.  EVENING .] 

324 


JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY  325 

Now  certainly  that  was  not  a  good  letter  to 
write,  and  is  not  a  pleasant  letter  to  read ;  but  the 
worst  of  it  is,  I  am  afraid  that  you  can  never  make 
the  writer  of  it  understand  why  it  is  unfair  and 
unwise  and  downright  cruel. 

For  I  think  we  can  figure  out  the  personality  of 
that  writer  pretty  easily.  She  is  a  nice  old  or 
middle-aged  lady,  unmarried,  of  course;  well-to- 
do,  and  likely  to  leave  a  very  comfortable  fortune 
behind  her  when  she  leaves  all  worldly  things ;  and 
accustomed  to  a  great  deal  of  deference  from  her 
nephews  and  nieces.  She  is  occasionally  subject 
to  nervous  headaches,  and  she  wrote  this  letter 
while  she  had  one  of  her  headaches.  She  had 
been  lying  down  and  trying  to  get  a  wink  of  sleep 
when  the  organ-grinder  came  under  the  window. 
It  was  a  new  organ  and  very  loud,  and  its  organ- 
grinder  was  proud  of  it  and  ground  it  with  all  his 
might,  and  it  was  certainly  a  very  annoying  instru 
ment  to  delicate  ears  and  sensitive  nerves. 

Now,  she  might  have  got  rid  of  the  nuisance  at 
once  by  a  very  simple  expedient.  If  she  had  sent 
Abigail,  her  maid,  down  to  the  street,  with  a  dime, 
and  told  her  to  say:  "Sicka  lady,  no  playa,"  poor 
Pedro  would  have  swung  his  box  of  whistles  over 
his  shoulder  and  trudged  contentedly  on.  But, 
instead,  she  sent  Abigail  down  without  the  dime, 
and  with  instructions  to  threaten  the  man  with 
immediate  arrest  and  imprisonment.  And  Abigail 
went  down  and  scolded  the  man  with  the  more 
vigor  that  she  herself  had  been  scolded  all  day  on 
account  of  the  headache.  And  so  Pedro  just 


326  JEESEY  AND  MULBERRY 

grinned  at  her  in  his  exasperating  furrin  way,  and 
played  on  until  he  got  good  and  ready  to  go.  Then 
he  went,  and  the  old  lady  sat  down  and  wrote  that 
letter,  and  gave  it  to  Abigail  to  post. 

Later  in  the  afternoon  the  old  lady  drove  out, 
and  the  fresh  air  did  her  a  world  of  good,  and  she 
stopped  at  a  toy  store  and  bought  some  trifles  for 
sister  Mary's  little  gir.1,  who  had  the  measles. 
Then  she  came  home,  and  after  dinner  she  read 
Mr.  Jacob  Riis's  book,  "How  the  Other  Half 
Lives;"  and  she  shuddered  at  the  picture  of  the 
Jersey  Street  slums  on  the  title  page,  and  shud 
dered  more  as  she  read  of  the  fourteen  people 
packed  in  one  room,  and  of  the  suffering  and 
squalor  and  misery  of  it  all.  And  then  she  made 
a  memorandum  to  give  a  larger  check  to  the  char 
itable  society  next  time.  Then  she  went  to  bed, 
not  forgetting  first  to  read  her  nightly  chapter  in 
the  gospel  of  the  carpenter's  son  of  Nazareth. 
And  she  had  quite  forgotten  all  about  the  coarse 
and  unchristian  words  she  had  written  in  the  letter 
that  was  by  that  time  passing  through  the  hands 
of  the  weary  night-shift  of  mail-clerks  down  in  the 
General  Post-office.  And  when  she  did  read  it  in 
print,  she  was  so  pleased  and  proud  of  the  fluency 
of  her  own  diction,  and  so  many  of  her  nephews 
and  nieces  said  so  many  admiring  things  about 
what  she  might  have  done  if  she  had  only  gone  in 
for  literature,  that  it  really  never  occurred  to  her 
at  all  to  think  whether  she  had  been  any  more  just 
and  charitable  than  the  poor  ignorant  man  wh0 
had  annoyed  her. 


JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY  327 

She  was  especially  pleased  with  the  part  that 
had  the  legal  phraseology  in  it,  and  with  the  scorn 
ful  rebuke  of  the  police  for  their  unwillingness  to 
disobey  municipal  ordinances.  This  was  founded 
partly  on  something  that  she  had  heard  nephew 
John  say  once,  and  partly  on  a  general  idea  she 
has  that  the  present  administration  has  forcibly 
usurped  the  city  government. 

Now,  I  have  no  doubt  that  when  the  organ 
grinder  went  home  at  night,  he  and  his  large 
family  laid  themselves  down  to  rest  in  a  back 
room  of  the  Jersey  Street  slum,  and  if  it  be  so,  I 
may  sometimes  see  him  when  I  look  out  of  a  cer 
tain  window  of  the  great  red-brick  building  where 
my  office  is,  for  it  lies  on  Mulberry  Street,  between 
Jersey  and  Houston.  My  own  personal  and  pri 
vate  window  looks  out  on  Mulberry  Street.  It  is 
in  a  little  den  at  the  end  of  a  long  string  of  low 
partitioned  offices  stretching  along  the  Mulberry 
Street  side ;  and  we  who  tenant  them  have  looked 
out  of  the  windows  for  so  many  years  that  we  have 
got  to  know,  at  least  by  sight,  a  great  many  of  the 
dwellers  thereabouts.  We  are  almost  in  the  very 
heart  of  that  "mob"  on  whose  "fellow-feeling  of 
vulgarity"  the  fellows  who  grind  the  organ  rely  to 
sustain  them  in  their  outrageous  behavior.  And, 
do  you  know,  as  we  look  out  of  those  windows,  year 
after  year,  we  find  ourselves  growing  to  have  a 
fellow-feeling  of  vulgarity  with  that  same  mob. 

The  figure  and  form  which  we  know  best  are 
those  of  old  Judge  Phoenix — for  so  the  office-jester 
named  him  when  we  first  moved  in,  and  we  have 


328  JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 

known  him  by  that  name  ever  since.  He  is  a  fat 
old  Irishman,  with  a  clean-shaven  face,  who  stands 
summer  and  winter  in  the  side  doorway  that  opens, 
next  to  the  little  grocery  opposite,  on  the  alley-way 
to  the  rear  tenement.  Summer  and  winter  he  is 
buttoned  to  his  chin  in  a  faded  old  black  overcoat. 
Alone  he  stands  for  the  most  part,  smoking  his 
black  pipe  and  teetering  gently  from  one  foot  to 
the  other.  But  sometimes  a  woman  with  a  shawl 
over  her  head  comes  out  of  the  alley-way  and 
exchanges  a  few  words  with  him  before  she  goes  to 
the  little  grocery  to  get  a  loaf  of  bread,  or  a  half 
pint  of  milk,  or  to  make  that  favorite  purchase 
the  poor — three  potatoes,  one  turnip,  one  carrot, 
four  onions,  and  the  handful  of  kale — a  "b'ilin  V 
And  there  is  also  another  old  man,  a  small  and 
bent  old  man,  who  has  some  strange  job  that  occu 
pies  odd  hours  of  the  day,  who  stops  on  his  way  to 
and  from  work  to  talk  with  the  Judge.  For  hours 
and  hours  they  talk  together,  till  one  wonders  how 
in  the  course  of  years  they  have  not  come  to  talk 
themselves  out.  What  can  they  have  left  to  talk 
about?  If  they  had  been  Mezzofanti  and  Macau- 
lay,  talking  in  all  known  languages  on  all  known 
topics,  they  ought  certainly  to  have  exhausted  the 
resources  of  conversation  long  before  this  time. 

Judge  Phoenix  must  be  a  man  of  independent 
fortune,  for  he  toils  not,  neither  does  he  spin,  and 
the  lilies  of  the  field  could  not  lead  a  more  simple 
vegetable  life,  nor  stay  more  contentedly  in  one 
place.  Perhaps  he  owns  the  rear  tenement.  I 
suspect  so,  for  he  must  have  been  at  one  time  in  the 


JERSEY  AND  MULBEERY  329 

labor-contract  business.  This,  of  course,  is  a 
mere  guess,  founded  upon  the  fact  that  we  once 
found  the  Judge  away  from  his  post  and  at  work. 
It  was  at  the  time  they  were  repaying  Broadway 
with  the  great  pavement.  We  discovered  the 
Judge  at  the  corner  of  Bleecker  Street  perched  on 
a  pile  of  dirt,  doing  duty  as  sub-section  boss.  He 
was  talking  to  the  drivers  of  the  vehicles  that  went 
past  him,  through  the  half -blockaded  thoroughfare, 
and  he  was  addressing  them,  after  the  true  pro 
fessional  contractor's  style,  by  the  names  of  their 
loads. 

there,  sand,"  he  would  cry,  "git  along 
Stone,  it 's  you  the  boss  wants  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street!  Dhry-goods,  there's  no  place 
for  ye  here ;  take  the  next  turn ! ' '  It  was  a  proud 
day  for  the  old  Judge,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  he 
talks  it  over  still  with  his  bent  old  crony,  and 
boasts  of  vain  deeds  that  grow  in  the  telling. 

Judge  Phoenix  is  not,  however,  without  mute 
company.  Fair  days  and  foul  are  all  one  to  the 
Judge,  but  on  fair  days  his  companion  is  brought 
out.  In  front  of  the  grocery  is  a  box  with  a 
sloping  top,  on  which  are  little  bins  for  vegetables. 
In  front  of  this  box,  again,  on  days  when  it  is  not 
raining  or  snowing,  a  little  girl  of  five  or  six  comes 
out  of  the  grocery  and  sets  a  little  red  chair. 
Then  she  brings  out  a  smaller  girl  yet,  who  may  be 
two  or  three,  a  plump  and  puggy  little  thing ;  and 
down  in  the  red  chair  big  sister  plunks  little  sister, 
and  there  till  next  meal-time  little  sister  sits  and 
never  so  much  as  offers  to  move.  She  must  have 


330  JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 

been  trained  to  this  unchildlike  self -imprisonment, 
for  she  is  lusty  and  strong  enough.  Big  sister 
works  in  the  shop,  and  once  in  a  while  she  comes 
out  and  settles  little  sister  more  comfortably  in 
her  red  chair;  and  then  little  sister  has  the  sole 
moment  of  relief  from  a  monotonous  existence. 
She  hammers  on  big  sister's  face  with  her  fat  little 
hands,  and  with  such  skill  and  force  does  she  direct 
the  blows  that  big  sister  often  has  to  wipe  her 
streaming  eyes.  But  big  sister  always  takes  it  in 
good  part,  and  little  sister  evidently  does  it,  not 
from  any  lack  of  affection,  but  in  the  way  of 
healthy  exercise.  Then  big  sister  wipes  little  sis 
ter's  nose  and  goes  back  into  the  shop.  I  suppose 
there  is  some  compact  between  them. 

Of  course  there  is  plenty  of  child  life  all  up  and 
down  the  sidewalk  on  both  sides,  although  little 
sister  never  joins  in  it.  My  side  of  the  street 
swarms  with  Italian  children,  most  of  them  from 
Jersey  Street,  which  is  really  not  a  street,  but  an 
alley.  Judge  Phoenix's  side  is  peopled  with  small 
Germans  and  Irish.  I  have  noticed  one  peculiar 
thing  about  these  children:  they  never  change 
sides.  They  play  together  most  amicably  in  the 
middle  of  the  street  or  in  the  gutter,  but  neither 
ventures  beyond  its  neutral  ground. 

Judge  Phcenix  and  little  sister  are  by  far  the 
most  interesting  figures  to  be  seen  from  my  win 
dows,  but  there  are  many  others  whom  we  know. 
There  is  the  Italian  barber  whose  brother  dropped 
dead  while  shaving  a  customer.  You  would  never 
imagine,  to  see  the  simple  and  unaffected  way  in 


JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY  331 

which  he  comes  out  to  take  the  air  once  in  a  while, 
standing  on  the  steps  of  his  basement,  and  twirling 
his  tin-backed  comb  in  idle  thought,  that  he  had 
had  such  a  distinguished  death  in  his  family.  But 
I  don't  let  him  shave  me. 

Then  there  is  Mamie,  the  pretty  girl  in  the  win 
dow  with  the  lace-curtains,  and  there  is  her 
epileptic  brother  He  is  insane,  but  harmless,  and 
amusing,  although  rather  trying  to  the  nerves. 
He  comes  out  of  the  house  in  a  hurry,  walks 
quickly  up  the  street  for  twenty  or  thirty  feet, 
then  turns  suddenly,  as  if  he  had  forgotten  some 
thing,  and  hurries  back,  to  reappear  two  minutes 
later  from  the  basement  door,  only  to  hasten 
wildly  in  another  direction,  turn  back  again, 
plunge  into  the  basement  door,  emerge  from  the 
upper  door,  get  half  way  down  the  block,  forget  it 
again,  and  go  back  to  make  a  new  combination  of 
doors  and  exits.  Sometimes  he  is  ten  or  twenty 
minutes  in  the  house  at  one  time.  Then  we  sup 
pose  he  is  having  a  fit.  Now,  it  seems  to  me  that 
that  modest  retirement  shows  consideration  and 
thoughtfulness  on  his  part. 

In  the  window  next  to  Mamie's  is  a  little,  putty- 
colored  face,  and  a  still  smaller  white  face,  that 
just  peeps  over  the  sill.  One  belongs  to  the 
mulatto  woman's  youngster.  Her  mother  goes 
out  scrubbing,  and  the  little  girl  is  alone  all  day. 
She  is  so  much  alone,  that  the  sage-green  old 
bachelor  in  the  second  den  from  mine  could  not 
stand  it,  last  Christmas  time,  so  he  sent  her  a  doll 
on  the  sly.  That's  the  other  face. 


332  JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 

Then  there  is  the  grocer,  who  is  a  groceress,  and 
the  groceress 's  husband.  I  wish  that  man  to 
understand,  if  his  eye  ever  falls  upon  this  page — 
for  wrapping  purposes,  we  will  say — that,  in  the 
language  of  Mulberry  Street,  I  am  on  to  him.  He 
has  got  a  job  recently,  driving  a  bakery  wagon, 
and  he  times  his  route  so  that  he  can  tie  up  in  front 
of  his  wife's  grocery  every  day  at  twelve  o'clock, 
and  he  puts  in  a  solid  hour  of  his  employer's  time 
helping  his  wife  through  the  noonday  rush.  But 
he  need  not  fear.  In  the  interests  of  the  higher 
morality  I  suppose  I  ought  to  go  and  tell  his 
employer  about  it.  But  I  won't.  My  morals  are 
not  that  high. 

Of  course  we  have  many  across-the-street 
friends,  but  I  cannot  tell  you  of  them  all.  I  will 
only  mention  the  plump  widow  who  keeps  the 
lunch-room  and  bakery  on  the  Houston  Street 
corner,  where  the  boys  go  for  their  luncheon.  It 
is  through  her  that  many  interesting  details  of 
personal  gossip  find  their  way  into  this  office. 

Jersey  Street,  or  at  least  the  rear  of  it,  seems  to 
be  given  up  wholly  to  the  Italians.  The  most 
charming  tenant  of  Jersey  Street  is  the  lovely 
Italian  girl,  who  looks  like  a  Jewess,  whose  mis 
sion  in  life  seems  to  be  to  hang  all  day  long  out  of 
her  window  and  watch  the  doings  in  the  little  stone 
flagged  courts  below  her.  In  one  of  these  an  old 
man  sometimes  comes  out,  sits  him  down  in  a 
shady  corner,  and  plays  on  the  Italian  bagpipes, 
which  are  really  more  painful  than  any  hand-organ 
that  ever  was  made.  After  a  while  his  wife  opens 


JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY  333 

hostilities  with  him  from  her  window.  I  suppose 
she  is  reproaching  him  for  an  idle  devotion  to  art, 
but  I  cannot  follow  the  conversation,  although  it 
is  quite  loud  enough  on  both  sides.  But  the  hand 
some  Italian  girl  up  at  the  window  follows  the 
changes  of  the  strife  with  the  light  of  the  joy  of 
battle  in  her  beautiful  dark  eyes,  and  I  can  tell 
from  her  face  exactly  which  of  the  old  folk  is 
getting  the  better  of  it. 

But  though  the  life  of  Jersey  and  Mulberry 
Streets  may  be  mildly  interesting  to  outside  spec 
tators  who  happen  to  have  a  fellow-feeling  of 
vulgarity  with  the  mob,  the  mob  must  find  it  rather 
monotonous.  Jersey  Street  is  not  only  a  blind 
alley,  but  a  dead  one,  so  far  as  outside  life  is  con 
cerned,  and  Judge  Ptusnix  and  little  sister  see 
pretty  much  the  same  old  two-and-sixpence  every 
day.  The  bustle  and  clamor  of  Mulberry  Bend 
are  only  a  few  blocks  below  them,  but  the  Bend  is 
an  exclusive  slum;  and  Police  Headquarters — the 
Central  Office — is  a  block  above,  but  the  Centra] 
Office  deals  only  with  the  refinements  of  artistic 
crime,  and  is  not  half  so  interesting  as  an  ordinary 
police  station.  The  priests  go  by  from  the  school 
below,  in  their  black  robes  and  tall  silk  hats, 
always  two  by  two,  marching  with  brisk,  business 
like  tread.  An  occasional  drunken  man  or  woman 
wavers  along,  but  generally  their  faces  and  their 
conditions  are  both  familiar.  Sometimes  two 
men  hurry  by,  pressing  side  by  side.  If  you  have 
seen  that  peculiar  walk  before  you  know  what  it 
means.  Two  light  steel  rings  link  their  wrists 


334  JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 

together.  The  old  man  idly  watches  them  until 
they  disappear  in  the  white  marble  building  on  the 
next  block.  And  then,  of  course,  there  is  always  a 
thin  stream  of  working  folk  going  to  and  fro  upon 
their  business. 

In  spring  and  in  fall  things  brighten  up  a  little. 
These  are  the  seasons  of  processions  and  religious 
festivals.  Almost  every  day  then,  and  sometimes 
half  a  dozen  times  a  day,  the  Judge  and  the  baby 
may  see  some  Italian  society  parading  through  the 
street.  Fourteen  proud  sons  of  Italy,  clad  in  mag 
nificent  new  uniforms,  bearing  aloft  huge  silk 
banners,  strut  magnificently  in  the  rear  of  a  Ger 
man  band  of  twenty-four  pieces,  and  a  drum-corps 
of  a  dozen  more.  Then,  too,  come  the  religious 
processions,,  when  the  little  girls  are  taken  to  their 
first  communion.  Six  sturdy  Italians  struggle 
along  under  the  weight  of  a  mighty  temple  or 
pavilion,  all  made  of  colored  candles — not  the 
dainty  little  pink  trifles  with  rosy  shades  of  per 
forated  paper,  that  light  our  old  lady's  dining 
table — but  the  great  big  candles  of  the  Romish 
Church  (a  church  which,  you  may  remember,  is 
much  affected  of  the  mob,  especially  in  times  of 
suffering,  sickness,  or  death) ;  mighty  candles,  six 
and  eight  feet  tall,  and  as  thick  as  your  wrist,  of 
red  and  blue  and  green  and  yellow,  arranged  in 
artistic  combinations  around  a  statue  of  the 
Virgin.  From  this  splendid  structure  silken  rib 
bons  stream  in  all  directions,  and  at  the  end  of 
each  ribbon  is  a  little  girl — generally  a  pretty  little 
girl — in  a  white  dress  bedecked  with  green  bows. 


JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY  335 

And  each  little  girl  leads  by  the  hand  one  smaller 
than  herself,  sometimes  a  toddler  so  tiny  that  you 
marvel  that  it  can  walk  at  all.  Some  of  the  little 
ones  are  bare-headed,  but  most  of  them  wear  the 
square  head-cloth  of  the  Italian  peasant,  such  as 
their  mothers  and  grandmothers  wore  in  Italy. 
At  each  side  of  the  girls  marches  an  escort  of 
proud  parents,  very  much  mixed  up  with  the  boys 
of  the  families,  who  generally  appear  in  their 
usual  street  dress,  some  of  them  showing  through 
it  in  conspicuous  places.  And  before  and  behind 
them  are  bands  and  drum-corps,  and  societies  with 
banners,  and  it  is  all  a  blare  of  martial  music  and 
primary  colors  the  whole  length  of  the  street. 

But  these  are  Mulberry  Street's  brief  carnival 
seasons,  and  when  their  splendor  is  departed  the 
block  relapses  into  workaday  dulness,  and  the  pro 
cession  that  marches  and  countermarches  before 
Judge  Phoenix  and  little  sister  in  any  one  of  the 
long  hours  between  eight  and  twelve  and  one  and 
six  is  something  like  this : 

UP  DOWN 

Detective   taking  prisoner   to 
Central  Office. 

Messenger   boy.  Chinaman. 

Two  priests.  Two  nousepainters. 

Jewish  sweater,  with  coats  on          B°7  ^th  basket, 
his  shoulder.  Boy  with  tin  beer-pails  on  a 

Carpenter.  stick- 

Another    Chinaman. 

Drunken  woman  (a  regular). 

Glass-put-in  man. 


336  JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 

UP  DOWN 

Washerwoman   with   clothes. 
Poor    woman    with     market- 
basket  Drunken  man. 

Undertaker 's    man     carrying 
trestles. 

Butcher's  boy. 

Detective       coming       back 

Two  priests.  from   Central  Office   alone. 

Such  is  the  daily  march  of  the  mob  in  Mulberry 
Street  near  the  mouth  of  Jersey's  blind  alley,  and 
such  is  its  outrageous  behavior  as  observed  by  a 
presumably  decent  person  from  the  windows  of  the 
big  red-brick  building  across  the  way. 

Suddenly  there  is  an  explosion  of  sound  under 
the  decent  person's  window,  and  a  hand-organ 
starts  off  with  a  jerk  like  a  freight  train  on  a  down 
grade,  that  joggles  a  whole  string  of  crashing 
notes.  Then  it  gets  down  to  work,  and  its  harsh, 
high-pitched,  metallic  drone  makes  the  street  ring 
for  a  moment.  Then  it  is  temporarily  drowned 
by  a  chorus  of  shrill,  small  voices.  The  person — 
I  am  afraid  his  decency  begins  to  drop  off  him 
here — leans  on  his  broad  window-sill  and  looks 
out.  The  street  is  filled  with  children  of  every 
age,  size,  and  nationality;  dirty  children,  clean 
children,  well-dressed  children,  and  children  in 
rags,  and  for  every  one  of  these  last  two  classes 
put  together  a  dozen  children  who  are  neatly  and 
cleanly  but  humbly  clad — the  children  of  the  self- 
respecting  poor.  I  do  not  know  where  they  have 
all  swarmed  from.  There  were  only  three  or  four 


JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY  337 

in  sight  just  before  the  organ  came ;  now  there  are 
several  dozen  in  the  crowd,  and  the  crowd  is  grow 
ing.  See,  the  women  are  coming  out  in  the  rear 
tenements.  Some  male  passers-by  line  up  on  the 
edge  of  the  sidewalk  and  look  on  with  a  superior 
air.  The  Italian  barber  has  come  all  the  way  up 
his  steps,  and  is  sitting  on  the  rail.  Judge  Phoenix 
has  teetered  forward  at  least  half  a  yard,  and 
stands  looking  at  the  show  over  the  heads  of  a 
little  knot  of  women  hooded  with  red  plaid  shawls. 
The  epileptic  boy  comes  out  on  his  stoop  and  stays 
there  at  least  three  minutes  before  the  area-way 
swallows  him.  Up  above  there  is  a  head  in  almost 
every  casement.  Mamie  is  at  her  window,  and  the 
little  mulatto  child  at  hers.  There  are  only  two 
people  who  do  not  stop  to  look  on  and  listen.  One 
is  a  Chinaman,  who  stalks  on  with  no  expression 
at  all  on  his  blank  face ;  the  other  is  the  boy  from 
the  printing-office  with  a  dozen  foaming  cans  of 
beer  on  his  long  stick.  But  he  does  not  leave 
because  he  wants  to.  He  lingers  as  long  as  he 
can,  in  his  passage  through  the  throng,  and  dis 
appears  in  the  printing-house  doorway  with  his 
head  screwed  half  way  around  on  his  shoulders. 
He  would  linger  yet,  but  the  big  foreman  would 
call  him  '  '  Spitzbube ! ' '  and  would  cuff  his  ears. 

The  children  are  dancing.  The  organ  is  playing 
"On  the  Blue  Alsatian  Mountains, "  and  the  little 
heads  are  bobbing  up  and  down  to  it  in  time  as  true 
as  ever  was  kept.  Watch  the  little  things !  They 
are  really  waltzing.  There  is  a  young  one  of  four 
years  old.  See  her  little  worn  shoes  take  the  step 


338  JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 

and  keep  it!  Dodworth  or  DeGarmo  could  not 
have  taught  her  better.  I  wonder  if  either  of 
them  ever  had  so  young  a  pupil.  And  she  is 
dancing  with  a  girl  twice  her  size.  Look  at  that 
ring  of  children — all  girls — waltzing  round  hand 
in  hand!  How  is  that  for  a  ladies' chain?  Well, 
well,  the  heart  grows  young  to  see  them.  And 
now  look  over  to  the  grocery.  Big  sister  has  come 
out  and  climbed  on  the  vegetable-stand,  and  is 
sitting  in  the  potatoes  with  little  sister  in  her  lap. 
Little  sister  waves  her  fat,  red  arms  in  the  air  and 
shrieks  in  babyish  delight.  The  old  women  with 
the  shawls  over  their  heads  are  talking  together, 
crooning  over  the  spectacle  in  their  Irish  way : 

"Thot's  me  Mary  Ann,  I  was  tellin'  ye  about, 
Mrs.  Rafferty,  dancin'  wid  the  little  one  in  the 
green  apron." 

"It's  a  foine  sthring  o'  childher  ye  have,  Mrs. 
Finn!"  says  Mrs.  Rafferty,  nodding  her  head  as 
though  it  were  balanced  on  wires.  And  so  the 
dance  goes  on. 

In  the  centre  of  it  all  stands  the  organ-grinder, 
swarthy  and  black-haired.  He  has  a  small,  clear 
space  so  that  he  can  move  the  one  leg  of  his  organ 
about,  as  he  turns  from  side  to  side,  gazing  up  at 
the  windows  of  the  brick  building  where  the  great 
wrought-iron  griffins  stare  back  at  him  from  their 
lofty  perches.  His  anxious  black  eyes  rove  from 
window  to  window.  The  poor  he  has  always  with 
him,  but  what  will  the  folk  who  mould  public 
opinion  in  great  griffin-decorated  buildings  do  for 
him? 


JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY  339 

I  think  we  will  throw  him  down  a  few  nickels. 
Let  us  tear  off  a  scrap  of  newspaper.  Here  is  a 

bit  from  the  society  column  of  the  Evening . 

That  will  do  excellently  well.  We  will  screw  the 
money  up  in  that,  and  there  it  goes,  clink!  on  the 
pavement  below.  There,  look  at  that  grin! 
Wasn't  it  cheap  at  the  price? 

I  wish  he  might  have  had  a  monkey  to  come  up 
and  get  the  nickels.  We  shall  never  see  the  organ 
grinder's  monkey  in  the  streets  of  New  York 
again.  I  see  him,  though.  He  comes  out  and 
visits  me  where  I  live  among  the  trees,  whenever 
the  weather  is  not  too  cold  to  permit  him  to  travel 
with  his  master.  Sometimes  he  comes  in  a  bag, 
on  chilly  days ;  and  my  own  babies,  who  seem  to  be 
born  with  the  fellow-feeling  of  vulgarity  with  the 
mob,  invite  him  in  and  show  him  how  to  warm  his 
cold  little  black  hands  in  front  of  the  kitchen 
range. 

I  do  not  suppose,  even  if  it  were  possible  to  get 
our  good  old  maiden  lady  to  come  down  to  Mul 
berry  Street  and  sit  at  my  window  when  the  organ 
grinder  comes  along,  she  could  ever  learn  to  look 
at  the  mob  with  friendly,  or  at  least  kindly,  eyes ; 
but  I  think  she  would  learn — and  she  is  cordially 
invited  to  come — that  it  is  not  a  mob  that  rejoices 
in  "outrageous  behavior,"  as  some  other  mobs 
that  we  read  of  have  rejoiced — notably  one  that 
gave  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  some  very  l  '  decent 
people"  in  Paris  toward  the  end  of  the  last 
century.  And  I  think  that  she  even  might  be 
induced  to  see  that  the  organ-grinder  is  following 


340  JERSEY  AND  MULBERRY 

an  honest  trade,  pitiful  as  it  be,  and  not  exercising 
a  "fearful  beggary."  He  cannot  be  called  a  beg 
gar  who  gives  something  that  to  him,  and  to 
thousands  of  others,  is  something  valuable,  in 
return  for  the  money  he  asks  of  you.  Our  organ 
grinder  is  no  more  a  beggar  than  is  my  good  friend 
Mr.  Henry  Abbey,  the  honestest  and  best  of 
operatic  impresarios.  Mr.  Abbey  can  take  the 
American  opera  house  and  hire  Mr.  Seidl  and 

Mr. to  conduct  grand  opera  for  your  delight 

and  mine,  and  when  we  can  afford  it  we  go  and 
listen  to  his  perfect  music,  and,  as  our  poor  con 
tributions  cannot  pay  for  it  all,  the  rich  of  the  land 
meet  the  deficit.  But  this  poor,  footsore  child  of 
fortune  has  only  his  heavy  box  of  tunes  and  a 
human  being's  easement  in  the  public  highway. 
Let  us  not  shut  him  out  of  that  poor  right  because 
once  in  a  while  he  wanders  in  front  of  our  doors 
and  offers  wares  that  offend  our  finer  taste.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  get  him  to  betake  himself  else 
where,  and,  if  it  costs  us  a  few  cents,  let  us  not 
ransack  our  law-books  and  our  moral  philosophies 
to  find  out  if  we  cannot  indict  him  for  constructive 
blackmail,  but  consider  the  nickel  or  the  dime  a 
little  tribute  to  the  uncounted  weary  souls  who 
love  his  strains  and  welcome  his  coming. 

For  the  editor  of  the  Evening was  wrong 

when  he  said  that  the  Board  of  Aldermen  and  the 
Mayor  consented  to  the  licensing  of  the  organ 
grinder  "in  the  face  of  a  popular  protest." 
There  was  a  protest,  but  it  was  not  a  popular  pro 
test,  and  it  came  face  to  face  with  a  demand  that 


JERSEY  AND  MULBEERY  341 

was  popular.  And  the  Mayor  and  the  Board  of 
Aldermen  did  rightly,  and  did  as  should  be  done  in 
this  American  land  of  ours,  when  they  granted  the 
demand  of  the  majority  of  the  people,  and  refused 
to  heed  the  protest  of  a  minority.  For  the  people 
who  said  YEA  on  this  question  were  as  scores  of 
thousands  or  hundreds  of  thousands  to  the  thou 
sands  of  people  who  said  NAY  ;  and  the  vexation  of 
the  few  hangs  light  in  the  balance  against  even  the 
poor  scrap  of  joy  which  was  spared  to  innumerable 
barren  lives. 

And  so  permit  me  to  renew  my  invitation  to  the 
old  lady. 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

IF  you  ever  were  a  decent,  healthy  boy,  or  if  you 
can  make  believe  that  you  once  were  such  a 
boy,  you  must  remember  that  you  were  once  in 
love  with  a  girl  a  great  deal  older  than  yourself. 
I  am  not  speaking  of  the  big  school-girl  with  whom 
you  thought  you  were  in  love,  for  one  little  while — 
just  because  she  wouldn't  look  at  you,  and  treated 
you  like  a  little  boy.  She  had,  after  all,  but  a 
tuppenny  temporary  superiority  to  you ;  and,  after 
all,  in  the  bottom  of  your  irritated  little  soul,  you 
knew  it.  You  knew  that,  proud  beauty  that  she 
was,  she  might  have  to  lower  her  colors  to  her 
little  sister  before  that  young  minx  got  into  the 
first  class  and — comparatively — long  dresses. 

No,  I  am  talking  of  the  girl  you  loved  who  was 
not  only  really  grown  up  and  too  old  for  you,  but 
grown  up  almost  into  old-maidhood,  and  too  old 
perhaps  for  anyone.  She  was  not,  of  course, 
quite  an  old  maid,  but  she  was  so  nearly  an  old 
maid  as  to  be  out  of  all  active  competition  with 
her  juniors — which  permitted  her  to  be  her  nat 
ural,  simple  self,  and  to  show  you  the  real  charm 
of  her  womanhood.  Neglected  by  the  men,  not  yet 
old  enough  to  take  to  coddling  young  girls  after 
the  manner  of  motherly  old  maids,  she  found  a 
hearty  and  genuine  pleasure  in  your  boyish  f  riend- 

342 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       343 

ship,  and  you — you  adored  her.  You  saw,  of 
course,  as  others  saw,  the  faded  dulness  of  her 
complexion;  you  saw  the  wee  crow's-feet  that 
gathered  in  the  corners  of  her  eyes  when  she 
laughed ;  you  saw  the  faint  touches  of  white  among 
the  crisp  little  curls  over  her  temples ;  you  saw  that 
the  keenest  wind  of  Fall  brought  the  red  to  her 
cheeks  only  in  two  bright  spots,  and  that  no  soft 
Spring  air  would  ever  bring  her  back  the  rosy,  pink 
flush  of  girlhood:  you  saw  these  things  as  others 
saw  them — no, indeed, you  did  not ;  you  saw  them  as 
others  could  not,  and  they  only  made  her  the  more 
dear  to  you.  And  you  were  having  one  of  the 
best  and  most  valuable  experiences  of  your  boy 
hood,  to  which  you  may  look  back  now,  whatever 
life  has  brought  you,  with  a  smile  that  has  in  it 
nothing  of  regret,  of  derision,  or  of  bitterness. 

Suppose  that  this  all  happened  long  ago — that 
you  had  left  a  couple  of  quarter  posts  of  your 
course  of  three-score-years-and-ten  between  that 
young  lover  and  your  present  self;  and  suppose 
that  the  idea  came  to  you  to  seek  out  and  revisit 
this  dear  faded  memory.  And  suppose  that  you 
were  foolish  enough  to  act  upon  the  idea,  and  went 
in  search  of  her  and  found  her — not  the  wholesome, 
autumn-nipped  comrade  that  you  remembered,  a 
shade  or  two  at  most  frostily  touched  by  the  winter 
of  old  age — but  a  berouged,  beraddled,  bedizened 
old  make-believe,  with  wrinkles  plastered  thick, 
and  skinny  shoulders  dusted  white  with  powder — 
ah,  me,  how  you  would  wish  you  had  not  gone ! 

And  just  so  I  wished  that  I  had  not  gone,  when, 


344       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

the  other  day,  I  was  tempted  back  to  revisit  the 
best  beloved  of  all  the  homes  of  my  nomadic  boy 
hood. 

I  remembered  four  pleasant  years  of  early  youth 
when  my  lot  was  cast  in  a  region  that  was  singu 
larly  delightful  and  grateful  and  lovable,  although 
the  finger  of  death  had  already  touched  its  pros 
perity  and  beauty  beyond  all  requickening. 

It  was  a  fair  countryside  of  upland  and  plateau, 
lying  between  a  majestic  hill-bordered  river  and 
an  idle,  wandering,  marshy,  salt  creek  that  flowed 
almost  side  by  side  with  its  nobler  companion  for 
several  miles  before  they  came  together  at  the 
base  of  a  steep,  rocky  height,  crowned  with  thick 
woods.  This  whole  country  was  my  playground, 
a  strip  some  four  or  five  miles  long,  and  for  the 
most  of  the  way  a  mile  wide  between  the  two 
rivers,  with  the  rocky,  wooded  eminence  for  its 
northern  boundary. 

In  the  days  when  the  broad  road  that  led  from 
the  great  city  was  a  famous  highway,  it  had  run 
through  a  country  of  comfortable  farm-houses  and 
substantial  old-fashioned  mansions  standing  in 
spacious  grounds  of  woodland  and  meadow. 
These  latter  occupied  the  heights  along  the  great 
river,  like  a  lofty  breastwork  of  aristocracy, 
guarding  the  humbler  tillers  of  the  soil  in  the  more 
sheltered  plains  and  hollows  behind  them.  The 
extreme  north  of  my  playground  had  been,  within 
my  father's  easy  remembering,  a  woodland  wild 
enough  to  shelter  deer;  and  even  in  my  boyhood 
there  remained  patches  of  forest  where  once  in  a 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       345 

while  the  sharp-eyed  picked  up  gunflints  and  brass 
buttons  that  had  been  dropped  among  those  very 
trees  by  the  marauding  soldiery  of  King  George 
III.  of  tyrannical  memory.  There  was  no  deer 
there  when  I  was  a  boy.  Doer  go  naturally  with 
a  hardy  peasantry,  and  not  naturally,  perhaps,  but 
artificially,  with  the  rich  and  great.  But  deer 
cannot  coexist  with  a  population  composed  of 
what  we  call  "People  of  Moderate  Means. "  It  is 
not  in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  that  they  should. 

For,  as  I  first  knew  our  neighborhood,  it  was  a 
suburb  as  a  physical  fact  only.  As  a  body  politic, 
we  were  a  part  of  the  great  city,  and  those  twain 
demons  of  encroachment,  Taxes  and  Assessments, 
had  definitively  won  in  their  battle  with  both  the 
farmers  and  the  country-house  gentry.  To  the 
south,  the  farms  had  been  wholly  routed  out  of 
existence.  A  few  of  the  old  family  estates  were 
kept  up  after  a  fashion,  but  it  was  only  as  the 
officers  of  a  defeated  garrison  are  allowed  to  take 
their  own  time  about  leaving  their  quarters. 
Along  the  broad  highway  some  of  them  lingered, 
keeping  up  a  poor  pretence  of  disregarding  new 
grades  and  levels,  and  of  not  seeing  the  little 
shanties  that  squatted  under  their  very  windows, 
or  the  more  offensive  habitations  of  a  more  pre 
tentious  poverty  that  began  to  range  themselves 
here  and  there  in  serried  blocks. 

Poor  people  of  moderate  means!  Nobody 
wants  you,  except  the  real  estate  speculator,  and 
he  wants  you  only  to  empty  your  light  pockets  for 
you,  and  to  leave  you  to  die  of  cheap  plumbing  in 


346       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

the  poor  little  sham  of  a  house  that  he  builds  to 
suit  your  moderate  means  and  his  immoderate 
greed.  Nowhere  are  you  welcome,  except  where 
contractors  are  digging  new  roads  and  blasting 
rocks  and  filling  sunken  lots  with  ashes  and  tin 
cans.  The  random  goat  of  poverty  browses  on  the 
very  confines  of  the  scanty,  small  settlement  of 
cheap  gentility  where  you  and  your  neighbors — 
people  of  moderate  means  like  yourself — huddle 
together  in  your  endless,  unceasing  struggle  for  a 
home  and  self-respect.  You  know  that  your  smug, 
mean  little  house,  tricked  out  with  machine-made 
scroll-work,  and  insufficiently  clad  in  two  coats  of 
ready-mixed  paint,  is  an  eyesore  to  the  poor  old 
gentleman  who  has  sold  you  a  corner  of  his 
father 's  estate  to  build  it  on.  But  there  it  is — the 
whole  hard  business  of  life  for  the  poor — for  the 
big  poor  and  the  little  poor,  and  the  unhappiest  of 
all,  the  moderately  poor.  He  must  sell  strip  after 
strip  of  the  grounds  his  father  laid  out  with  such 
loving  and  far-looking  pride.  You  must  buy  your 
narrow  strip  from  him,  and  raise  thereon  your 
tawdry  little  house,  calculating  the  cost  of  every 
inch  of  construction  in  hungry  anxiety  of  mind. 
And  then  you  must  sit  down  in  your  narrow  front 
room  to  stare  at  the  squalid  shanty  of  the  poor 
man  who  has  squatted  right  in  your  sight,  on  the 
land  condemned  for  the  new  avenue;  to  wish  that 
the  street  might  be  cut  through  and  the  unsightly 
hovel  taken  away — and  then  to  groan  in  spirit  as 
you  think  of  the  assessment  you  must  pay  when 
the  street  is  cut  through. 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       347 

And  yet  you  must  live,  oh,  people  of  moderate 
means !  You  have  your  loves  and  your  cares,  your 
tastes  and  your  ambitions,  your  hopes  and  your 
fears,  your  griefs  and  your  joys,  just  like  the 
people  whom  you  envy  and  the  people  who  envy 
you.  As  much  as  any  of  them,  you  have  the 
capacity  for  pain  and  for  pleasure,  for  loving  and 
for  being  loved,  that  gives  human  beings  a  right  to 
turn  the  leaves  of  the  book  of  life  and  spell  out  its 
lessons  for  themselves.  I  know  this;  I  know  it 
well;  I  wras  beginning  to  find  it  out  when  I  first 
came  to  that  outpost  suburb  of  New  York,  in  the 
trail  of  your  weary  army. 

But  I  was  a  boy  then,  and  no  moderateness  of 
earthly  means  could  rob  me  of  my  inheritance  in 
the  sky  and  the  woods  and  the  fields,  in  the  sun  and 
the  snow  and  the  rain  and  the  wind,  and  in  every 
day 's  weather,  of  which  there  never  was  any  kind 
made  that  has  not  some  delight  in  it  to  a  healthful 
body  and  heart.  And  on  this  inheritance  I  drew 
such  great,  big,  liberal,  whacking  drafts  that,  I 
declare,  to  this  very  day,  some  odd  silver  pieces  of 
the  resultant  spending-money  keep  turning  up, 
now  and  then,  in  forgotten  pockets  of  my  mind. 

The  field  of  my  boyish  activity  was  practically 
limited  by  the  existing  conditions  of  the  city's 
growth.  With  each  year  there  was  less  and  less 
temptation  to  extend  that  field  southward.  The 
Bloomingdale  Eoad,  with  its  great  arching  wil 
lows,  its  hospitable  old  road-houses  withdrawn 
from  the  street  and  hidden  far  down  shady  lanes 
that  led  riverward — the  splendid  old  highway 


348       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

retained  something  of  its  charm;  but  day  by  day 
the  gridiron  system  of  streets  encroached  upon  it, 
and  day  by  day  the  shanties  and  cheap  villas 
crowded  in  along  its  sides,  between  the  old  farm 
steads  and  the  country-places.  And  then  it  led 
only  to  the  raw  and  unfinished  Central  Park,  and 
to  the  bare  waste  and  dreary  fag-end  of  a  New 
York  that  still  looked  upon  Union  Square  as  an 
uptown  quarter.  Besides  that,  the  lone  scion  of 
respectability  who  wandered  too  freely  about  the 
region  just  below  Manhattanville,  was  apt  to  get 
his  head  most  beautifully  punched  at  the  hands  of 
some  predatory  gang  of  embryonic  toughs  from 
the  shanties  on  the  line  of  the  aqueduct. 

That  is  how  our  range — mine  and  the  other 
boys' — was  from  Tiemann's  to  Tubby  Hook;  that 
is,  from  where  ex-Mayor  Tiemann's  fine  old  house, 
with  its  long  conservatories,  sat  on  the  edge  of  the 
Manhattanville  bluff  and  looked  down  into  the 
black  mouths  of  the  chimneys  of  the  paint-works 
that  had  paid  for  its  building,  up  to  the  little  inn 
near  the  junction  of  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek  and  the 
Hudson  River.  Occasionally,  of  course,  the 
delight  of  the  river  front  tempted  us  further  down. 
There  was  an  iron-mill  down  there  (if  that  is  the 
proper  name  for  a  place  where  they  make  pig 
iron),  whose  operations  were  a  perpetual  joy  to 
boyhood's  heart.  The  benevolent  lovers  of  the 
picturesque  who  owned  this  mill  had  a  most 
entrancing  way  of  making  their  castings  late  in 
the  afternoon,  so  as  to  give  a  boy  a  chance  to  coast 
or  skate,  an  hour  after  school  closed,  before  it  was 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       349 

time  to  slip  down  to  the  grimy  building  on  the 
river's  bank,  and  peer  through  the  arched  door 
way  into  the  great,  dark,  mysterious  cavern  with 
its  floor  of  sand  marked  out  in  a  pattern  of 
trenches  that  looked  as  if  they  had  been  made  by 
some  gigantic  double-toothed  comb — a  sort  of 
right-angled  herringbone  pattern.  The  darkness 
gathered  outside,  and  deepened  still  faster  within 
that  gloomy,  smoke-blackened  hollow.  The  work 
men,  with  long  iron  rods  in  their  hands,  moved 
about  with  the  cautious,  expectant  manner  of  men 
whose  duty  brings  them  in  contact  with  a  daily 
danger.  They  stepped  carefully  about,  fearful  of 
injuring  the  regular  impressions  in  the  smooth 
sand,  and  their  looks  turned  ever  with  a  certain 
anxiety  to  the  great  black  furnace  at  the  northern 
end  of  the  room,  where  every  now  and  then,  at  the 
foreman's  order,  a  fiery  eye  would  open  itself  for 
inspection  and  close  sullenly,  making  everything 
seem  more  dark  than  it  was  before.  At  last — 
sometimes  it  was  long  to  wait — the  eye  would  open, 
and  the  foreman,  looking  into  it,  would  nod;  and 
then  a  thrill  of  excitement  rah  through  the  work 
men  at  their  stations  and  the  boys  in  the  big  door 
way;  and  suddenly  a  huge  red  mouth  opened 
beneath  the  eye,  and  out  poured  the  mighty  flood 
of  molten  iron,  glowing  with  a  terrible,  wonderful, 
dazzling  color  that  was  neither  white  nor  red,  nor 
rose  nor  yellow,  but  that  seemed  to  partake  of 
them  all,  and  yet  to  be  strangely  different  from  any 
hue  that  men  can  classify  or  name.  Down  it 
flowed  upon  the  sanded  floor,  first  into  the  broad 


350       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

trench  in  front  of  the  furnace,  then  down  the  long 
dorsals  of  the  rectangular  herring-bones,  spread 
ing  out  as  it  went  into  the  depressions  to  right  and 
left,  until  the  mighty  pattern  of  fire  shone  in  its 
full  length  and  breadth  on  the  floor  of  sand;  and 
the  workmen,  who  had  been  coaxing  the  sluggish, 
lava-like  flood  along  with  their  iron  rods,  rested 
from  their  labors  and  wiped  their  hot  brows,  while 
a  thin  cloud  of  steamy  vapor  floated  up  to  the  be 
grimed  rafters.  Standing  in  the  doorway  we  could 
watch  the  familiar  pattern — the  sow  and  pigs,  it 
was  called — die  down  to  a  dull  rose  red,  and  then 
we  would  hurry  away  before  blackness  came  upon 
it  and  wiped  it  clean  out  of  memory  and  imagina 
tion. 

Below  the  foundry,  too,  there  was  a  point  of  land 
whereon  were  certain  elevations  and  depressions 
of  turf -covered  earth  that  were  by  many,  and  most 
certainly  by  me,  supposed  to  be  the  ruins  of  a  Eev- 
olutionary  fort.  I  have  heard  long  and  warm  dis 
cussions  of  the  nature  and  history  of  these  mounds 
and  trenches,  and  I  believe  the  weight  of  authority 
was  against  the  theory  that  they  were  earthworks 
thrown  up  to  oppose  the  passage  of  a  British  fleet. 
But  they  were  good  enough  earthworks  for  a  boy. 

Just  above  Tiemann's,  on  the  lofty,  protrudent 
corner  made  by  the  dropping  of  the  highroad  into 
the  curious  transverse  valley,  or  swale,  which  at 
125th  Street  crosses  Manhattan  Island  from  east 
to  west,  stood,  at  the  top  of  a  steep  lawn,  a  mansion 
imposing  still  in  spite  of  age,  decay,  and  sorry 
days.  The  great  Ionic  columns  of  the  portico, 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       351 

which  stood  the  whole  height  and  breadth  of  the 
front,  were  cracked  in  their  length,  and  rotten  in 
base  and  capital.  The  white  and  yellow  paint  was 
faded  and  blistered.  Below  the  broad  flight  of 
crazy  front-steps  the  grass  grew  rank  in  the  gravel 
walk,  and  died  out  in  brown,  withered  patches  on 
the  lawn,  where  only  plantain  and  sorrel  throve. 
It  was  a  sad  and  shabby  old  house  enough,  but  even 
the  patches  of  newspaper  here  and  there  on  its 
broken  window-panes  could  not  take  away  a  cer 
tain  simple,  old-fashioned  dignity  from  its  weath 
er-beaten  face. 

Here,  the  boys  used  to  say,  the  Crazy  Woman 
lived ;  but  she  was  not  crazy.  I  knew  the  old  lady 
well,  and  at  one  time  we  were  very  good  friends. 
She  was  the  last  daughter  of  an  old,  once  prosper 
ous  family ;  a  woman  of  bright,  even  brilliant  mind, 
unhinged  by  misfortune,  disappointment,  loneli 
ness,  and  the  horrible  fascination  which  an  inher 
ited  load  of  litigation  exercised  upon  her.  The 
one  diversion  of  her  declining  years  was  to  let  vari 
ous  parts  and  portions  of  her  premises,  on  any 
ridiculous  terms  that  might  suggest  themselves,  to 
any  tenants  that  might  offer ;  and  then  to  eject  the 
lessee,  either  on  a  nice  point  of  law  or  on  general 
principles,  precisely  as  she  saw  fit.  She  was  al 
most  invariably  successful  in  this  curious  game, 
and  when  she  was  not,  she  promptly  made  friends 
with  her  victorious  tenant,  and  he  usually  ended  by 
liking  her  very  much. 

Her  family,  if  I  remember  rightly,  had  distin 
guished  itself  in  public  service.  It  was  one  of 


352       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

those  good  old  American  houses  where  the  men- 
children  are  born  with  politics  in  their  veins — that 
is,  with  an  inherited  sense  of  citizenship,  and  a 
conscious  pride  in  bearing  their  share  in  the  civic 
burden.  The  young  man  just  out  of  college,  who 
has  got  a  job  at  writing  editorials  on  the  Purifica 
tion  of  Politics,  is  very  fond  of  alluding  to  such 
men  as  "indurated  professional  office-holders." 
But  the  good  old  gentleman  who  pays  the  young 
ex-collegian's  bills  sometimes  takes  a  great  deal  of 
pleasure — in  his  stupid,  old-fashioned  way — in 
uniting  with  his  fellow-merchants  of  the  Swamp  or 
Hanover  Square,  to  subscribe  to  a  testimonial  to 
some  one  of  the  best  abused  of  these  "  indurated " 
sinners,  in  honor  of  his  distinguished  services  in 
lowering  some  tax-rate,  in  suppressing  some  nui 
sance,  in  establishing  some  new  municipal  safe 
guard  to  life  or  property.  This  blood  in  her  may, 
in  some  measure,  account  for  the  vigor  and  en 
thusiasm  with  which  this  old  lady  expressed  her 
sense  of  the  loss  the  community  had  sustained  in 
the  death  of  President  Lincoln,  in  April  of  1865. 

Summoning  two  or  three  of  us  youngsters,  and  a 
dazed  Irish  maid  fresh  from  Castle  Garden  and  a 
three  weeks'  voyage  in  the  steerage  of  an  ocean 
steamer,  she  led  us  up  to  the  top  of  the  house,  to 
one  of  those  vast  old-time  garrets  that  might  have 
been — and  in  country  inns  occasionally  were — 
turned  into  ball-rooms,  with  the  aid  of  a  few  lights 
and  sconces.  Here  was  stored  the  accumulated 
garmenture  of  the  household  for  generation  upon 
generation ;  and  as  far  as  I  could  discover,  every 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       353 

member  of  that  family  had  been  born  into  a  pro 
found  mourning  that  had  continued  unto  his  or  her 
latest  day,  unmitigated  save  for  white  shirts  and 
petticoats.  These  we  bore  down  by  great  armfuls 
to  the  front  portico,  and  I  remember  that  the  ope 
ration  took  nearly  an  hour.  When  at  length  we 
had  covered  the  shaky  warped  floor  of  the  long 
porch  with  the  strange  heaps  of  black  and  white — 
linens,  cottons,  silks,  bombazines,  alpacas,  ging 
hams,  every  conceivable  fabric,  in  fashion  or  out 
of  fashion  that  could  be  bleached  white  or  dyed 
black — the  old  lady  arranged  us  in  working  order, 
and,  acting  at  once  as  directress  and  chief  worker, 
with  incredible  quickness  and  dexterity  she  rent 
these  varied  and  multiform  pieces  of  raiment  into 
broad  strips,  which  she  ingeniously  twisted,  two  or 
three  together,  stitching  them  at  the  ends  to  other 
sets  of  strips,  until  she  had  formed  immensely  long 
rolls  of  black  and  white.  Mounting  a  tall  ladder, 
with  the  help  of  the  strongest  and  oldest  of  her  as 
sistants,  she  wound  the  great  tall  white  columns 
with  these  strips,  fastening  them  in  huge  spirals 
from  top  to  bottom,  black  and  white  entwined. 
Then  she  hung  ample  festoons  between  the  pillars, 
and  contrived  something  painfully  ambitious  in  the 
way  of  rosettes  for  the  cornice  and  frieze. 

Then  we  all  went  out  in  the  street  and  gazed  at 
the  work  of  our  hands.  The  rosettes  were  a  fail 
ure,  and  the  old  lady  admitted  it.  I  have  forgotten 
whether  she  said  they  looked  "  mangy, "  or 
' '  measly, ' '  or  *  '  peaky ; ' '  but  she  conveyed  her  idea 
in  some  such  graphic  phrase.  But  I  must  ask  you 


354       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

to  believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that,  from  the  distant 
street,  that  poor,  weather-worn  old  front  seemed  to 
have  taken  on  the  very  grandeur  of  mourning,  with 
its  great,  clean,  strong  columns  simply  wreathed  in 
black  and  snowy  white,  that  sparkled  a  little  here 
and  there  in  the  fitful,  cold,  spring  sunlight.  Of 
course,  when  you  drew  near  to  it,  it  resolved  itself 
into  a  bewildering  and  somewhat  indecent  con 
fusion  of  black  petticoats,  and  starched  shirts,  and 
drawers,  and  skirts,  and  baby-clothes,  and  chem 
ises,  and  dickies,  and  neck-cloths,  and  handker 
chiefs,  all  twisted  up  into  the  most  fantastic  trap 
pings  of  woe  that  ever  decked  a  genuine  and  patri 
otic  grief.  But  I  am  glad,  for  myself,  that  I  can 
look  at  it  all  now  from  even  a  greater  distance  than 
the  highway  at  the  foot  of  the  lawn. 

I  must  admit  that,  even  in  my  day,  the  shops  and 
houses  of  the  Moderate  Means  colony  had  so 
fringed  the  broad  highway  with  their  trivial,  com 
monplace,  weakly  pretentious  architecture,  that 
very  little  of  the  distinctive  character  of  the  old 
road  was  left.  Certainly,  from  Tiemann's  to  the 
Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum — about  two  miles  of 
straight  road — there  was  little  that  had  any  saving 
grace  of  honorable  age,  except  here  and  there 
where  some  pioneer  shanty  had  squatted  itself  long 
enough  to  have  acquired  a  pleasant  look  of  faded 
shabbiness.  The  tavern  and  the  stage-office,  it  is 
true,  kept  enough  of  their  old  appearance  to  make 
a  link  between  those  days  and  the  days  when 
swarms  of  red-faced  drovers,  with  big  woollen 
comfortables  about  their  big  necks,  and  with  fat, 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       355 

greasy,  leather  wallets  stuffed  full  of  bank-notes, 
gathered  noisily  there,  as  it  was  their  wont  to 
gather  at  all  the  "Bull's  Head  Taverns"  in  and 
around  New  York.  The  omnibuses  that  crawled 
out  from  New  York  were  comparatively  modern — 
that  is,  a  Broadway  'bus  rarely  got  ten  or  fifteen 
years  beyond  the  period  of  positive  decrepitude 
without  being  shifted  to  the  Washington  Heights 
line.  But  under  the  big  shed  around  the  corner 
still  stood  the  great  old  George  Washington  coach 
— a  structure  about  the  size  and  shape  of  a  small 
canal-boat,  with  the  most  beautiful  patriotic  pic 
tures  all  over  it,  of  which  I  only  remember  Lord 
Cornwallis  surrendering  his  sword  in  the  politest 
and  most  theatrical  manner  imaginable,  although 
the  poignancy  of  his  feelings  had  apparently 
turned  his  scarlet  uniform  to  a  pale  orange.  This 
magnificent  equipage  was  a  trifle  rheumaticky 
about  its  underpinning,  but,  drawn  by  four,  six,  or 
eight  horses,  it  still  took  the  road  on  holidays ;  and 
in  winter,  when  the  sleighing  was  unusually  fine, 
with  its  wheels  transformed  into  sectional  runners 
like  a  gigantic  bob-sled,  it  swept  majestically  out 
upon  the  road,  where  it  towered  above  the  flock  of 
flying  cutters  whose  bells  set  the  air  a-jingle  from 
Bloomingdale  to  King's  Bridge. 

But  if  the  beauty  of  Broadway  as  a  country  high 
road  had  been  marred  by  its  adaptation  to  the  exi 
gencies  of  a  suburb  of  moderate  means,  we  boys 
felt  the  deprivation  but  little.  To  right  and  to  left, 
as  we  wandered  northward,  five  minutes'  walk 
would  take  us  into  a  country  of  green  lanes  and 


356       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

meadows  and  marshland  and  woodland;  where 
houses  and  streets  were  as  yet  too  few  to  frighten 
away  that  kindly  old  Dame  Nature  who  was  always 
so  glad  to  see  us.  If  you  turned  to  the  right — to 
the  east,  that  is — you  found  the  laurel-bordered 
fields  where  we  played  baseball — I  don't  mean  that 
the  fields  sprouted  with  laurels  for  us  boys  in  those 
old  days  of  29  to  34  scores,  but  that  the  Kalmia  lati- 
folia  crowned  the  gray  rocks  that  cropped  out  all 
around.  Farther  up  was  the  wonderful  and  mys 
terious  old  house  of  Madame  Jumel — Aaron 
Burr's  Madame  Jumel — set  apart  from  all  other 
houses  by  its  associations  with  the  fierce,  vindictive 
passions  of  that  strange  old  woman,  whom,  it 
seems  to  me,  I  can  still  vaguely  remember,  seated 
very  stiff  and  upright  in  her  great  old  family  car 
riage.  At  the  foot  of  the  heights,  on  this  side,  the 
Harlem  Eiver  flowed  between  its  marshy  margins 
to  join  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek — the  Harlem  with  its 
floats  and  boats  and  bridges  and  ramshackle  docks, 
and  all  the  countless  delights  of  a  boating  river. 
Here  also  was  a  certain  dell,  half-way  up  the 
heights  overlooking  McComb  's  Dam  Bridge,  where 
countless  violets  grew  around  a  little  spring,  and 
where  there  was  a  real  cave,  in  which,  if  real 
pirates  had  not  left  their  treasure,  at  least  real 
tramps  had  slept  and  left  a  real  smell.  And  on  top 
of  the  cave  there  was  a  stone  which  was  supposed 
to  retain  the  footprint  of  a  prehistoric  Indian. 
From  what  I  remember  of  that  footprint  I  am  in 
clined  to  think  that  it  must  have  been  made  by  the 
foot  of  a  derrick,  and  not  by  that  of  an  Indian. 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       357 

But  it  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  Island,  be 
tween  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum  and  Tubby 
Hook,  and  between  the  Ridge  and  the  River,  that  I 
most  loved  to  ramble.  Here  was  the  slope  of  a 
woodland  height  running  down  to  a  broad  low 
strip,  whose  westernmost  boundary  was  the  rail 
road  embankment,  beyond  which  lay  the  broad  blue 
Hudson,  with  Fort  Lee  and  the  first  up-springing 
of  the  Palisades,  to  be  seen  by  glimpses  through 
the  tree-trunks.  This  was,  I  think,  the  prettiest 
piece  of  flower-spangled  wildwood  that  I  have  ever 
seen.  For  centuries  it  had  drained  the  richness  of 
that  long  and  lofty  ridge.  The  life  of  lawns  and 
gardens  had  gone  into  it;  the  dark  wood-soil  had 
been  washed  from  out  the  rocks  on  the  brow  of  the 
hill ;  and  down  below  there,  where  a  vagrom  brook 
let  chirped  its  way  between  green  stones,  the 
wholesome  soil  bloomed  forth  in  grateful  luxuri 
ance.  From  the  first  coming  of  the  anemone  and 
the  hepatica,  to  the  time  of  the  asters,  there  was 
always  something  growing  there  to  delight  the 
scent  or  the  sight ;  and  most  of  all  do  I  remember 
the  huge  clumps  of  Dutchman 's-breeches — the 
purple  and  the  waxy  white  as  well  as  the  honey- 
tipped  scarlet. 

There  were  little  sunlit  clearings  here,  and  I  well 
recall  the  day  when,  looking  across  one  of  these,  I 
saw  something  that  stood  awkwardly  and  conspic 
uously  out  of  the  young  wood-grass — a  raw  stake 
of  pine  wood,  and  beyond  that,  another  stake,  and 
another;  and  parallel  with  these  another  row, 
marking  out  two  straight  lines,  until  the  bushes  hid 


358       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

them.  The  surveyors  had  begun  to  lay  out  the 
line  of  the  new  Boulevard,  on  which  you  may  now 
roll  in  your  carriage  to  Inwood,  through  the  wreck 
of  the  woods  where  I  used  to  scramble  over  rock 
and  tree-trunk,  going  toward  Tubby  Hook. 

It  was  on  the  grayest  of  gray  November  days 
last  year  that  I  had  the  unhappy  thought  of  re 
visiting  this  love  of  my  youth.  I  followed  famil 
iar  trails,  guided  by  landmarks  I  could  not  forget 
— although  they  had  somehow  grown  incredibly 
poor  and  mean  and  shabby,  and  had  entirely  lost  a 
certain  dignity  that  they  had  until  then  kept  quite 
clearly  in  my  remembrance.  And  behold,  they 
were  no  longer  landmarks  except  to  me.  A  change 
had  come  over  the  face  of  this  old  playground  of 
mine.  It  had  forgotten  the  withered,  modest 
grace  of  the  time  when  it  was  middle-aged,  and 
when  I  was  a  boy.  It  was  checkered  and  grid- 
ironed  with  pavements  and  electric  lights.  The 
Elevated  Eailroad  roared  at  its  doors  behind 
clouds  of  smoke  and  steam.  Great,  cheerless, 
hideously  ornate  flat  buildings  reared  their  zinc- 
tipped  fronts  toward  the  gray  heaven,  to  show  the 
highest  aspirations  of  that  demoralized  suburb  in 
the  way  of  domestic  architecture.  To  right,  to 
left,  every  way  I  turned,  I  saw  a  cheap,  tawdry, 
slipshod  imitation  of  the  real  city — or  perhaps  I 
should  say,  of  all  that  is  ugliest  and  vulgarest, 
least  desirable,  and  least  calculated  to  endure,  in 
the  troubled  face  of  city  life.  I  was  glad  to  get 
away ;  glad  that  the  gray  mist  that  rolled  up  from 
the  Hudson  Eiver  hid  from  my  sight  within  its 


TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK       359 

fleecy  bosom  some  details  of  that  vulgar  and  piti 
ful  degradation.  One  place  alone  I  found  as  I  had 
hoped  to  find  it.  Ex-Mayor  Tiemann's  house  was 
gone,  his  conservatory  was  a  crumbling  ruin ;  the 
house  we  decked  for  Lincoln's  death  was  a  filthy 
tenement  with  a  tumble-down  gallery  where  the 
old  portico  had  stood,  and  I  found  very  little  on 
my  upward  pilgrimage  that  had  not  experienced 
some  change — for  the  worse,  as  it  seemed  to  me. 
The  very  cemetery  that  belongs  to  old  Trinity  had 
dandified  itself  with  a  wonderful  wall  and  a  still 
more  wonderful  bridge  to  its  annex — or  appendix, 
or  extension,  or  whatever  you  call  it.  But  just 
above  it  is  a  little  enclosure  that  is  called  a  park — 
a  place  where  a  few  people  of  modest,  old-fash 
ioned,  domestic  tastes  had  built  their  houses  to 
gether  to  join  in  a  common  resistance  against  the 
encroachments  of  the  speculator  and  the  nomad 
house-hunter.  I  found  this  little  settlement  un 
disturbed,  uninvaded,  save  by  a  sort  of  gentle 
decay  that  did  it  no  ill-service,  in  my  eyes.  The 
pale  dust  was  a  little  deeper  in  the  roadways  that 
had  once  been  paved  with  limestone,  a  few  more 
brown  autumn  leaves  had  fallen  in  the  corners  of 
the  fences,  the  clustered  wooden  houses  all  looked 
a  little  more  rustily  respectable  in  their  reserved 
and  sleepy  silence — a  little  bit  more,  I  thought,  as 
if  they  sheltered  a  colony  of  old  maids.  Other 
wise  it  looked  pretty  much  as  it  did  when  I  first 
saw  it,  well  nigh  thirty  years  ago. 

To  see  if  there  were  anything  alive  in  that  misty, 
dusty,  faded  little  abode  of  respectability,  I  rang 


360       TIEMANN'S  TO  TUBBY  HOOK 

at  the  door  of  one  house,  and  found  some  inquiries 
to  make  concerning  another  one  that  seemed  to  be 
untenanted. 

It  was  a  very  pretty  young  lady  who  opened  the 
door  for  me,  with  such  shining  dark  eyes  and  with 
so  bright  a  red  in  her  cheeks,  that  you  felt  that  she 
could  not  have  been  long  in  that  dull,  old-time  spot, 
where  life  seemed  to  be  all  one  neutral  color.  She 
answered  my  questions  kindly,  and  then,  with 
something  in  her  manner  which  told  me  that 
strangers  did  not  often  wander  in  there,  she  said 
that  it  was  a  very  nice  place  to  live  in.  I  told  her 
that  I  knew  it  had  been  a  very  nice  place  to  live  in. 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

ONE  day  a  good  many  years  ago  an  old  gen 
tleman  from  Kondout-on-the-Hudson — 
then  plain  Eondout — was  walking  up 
Broadway  seeing  the  sights.  He  had  not  been  in 
New  York  in  ten  or  twelve  years,  and  although  he 
was  an  old  gentleman  who  always  had  a  cask  of 
good  ale  in  his  cellar  in  the  winter-time,  yet  he  had 
never  tasted  the  strange  German  beverage  called 
lager-beer,  which  he  had  heard  and  read  about. 
So  when  he  saw  its  name  on  a  sign  he  went  in  and 
drank  a  mug,  sipping  it  slowly  and  thoughtfully, 
as  he  would  have  sipped  his  old  ale.  He  found  it 
refreshing — peculiar — and,  well,  on  the  whole, 
very  refreshing  indeed,  as  he  considerately  told 
the  proprietor. 

But  what  interested  him  more  than  the  beer  was 
the  sight  of  a  group  of  young  men  seated  around  a 
table  drinking  beer,  reading — and — yes,  actually 
writing  verses,  and  bandying  very  lively  jests 
among  themselves.  The  old  gentleman  could  not 
help  hearing  their  conversation,  and  when  he  went 
out  into  the  street  he  shook  his  head  thoughtfully. 

"I  wonder  what  my  father  would  have  said  to 
that?"  he  reflected.  "Young  gentlemen  sitting 
in  a  pot-house  at  high  noon  and  turning  verses 
like  so  many  ballad-mongers !  Well,  well,  well,  if 

361 


362       THE  BOWEEY  AND  BOHEMIA 

those  are  the  ways  of  lager-beer  drinkers,  I'll 
stick  to  my  good  old  ale !" 

And  greatly  surprised  would  that  honest  old 
gentleman  have  been  to  know  that  the  presence  of 
that  little  group  of  poets  and  humorists  attracted 
as  much  custom  to  good  Mr.  PfafFs  beer-saloon  as 
did  his  fresh,  cool  lager ;  and  that  young  men,  and, 
for  the  matter  of  that,  men  not  so  young,  stole  in 
there  to  listen  to  their  contests  of  wit,  and  to  wish 
and  yearn  and  aspire  to  be  of  their  goodly  com 
pany.  For  the  old  gentleman  little  dreamed,  as 
he  went  on  his  course  up  Broadway,  that  he  had 
seen  the  first  Bohemians  of  New  York,  and  that 
these  young  men  would  be  written  about  and 
talked  about  and  versified  about  for  generations  to 
come.  Unconscious  of  this  honor  he  went  on  to 
Fourteenth  Street  to  see  the  new  square  they  were 
laying  out  there. 

Perhaps  nothing  better  marks  the  place  where 
the  city  of  New  York  got  clean  and  clear  out  of 
provincial  pettiness  into  metropolitan  tolerance 
than  the  advent  of  the  Bohemians.  Twenty-five 
years  earlier  they  would  have  been  a  scandal  and  a 
reproach  to  the  town.  Not  for  their  literature, 
or  for  their  wit,  or  for  their  hard  drinking,  or 
even  for  their  poverty ;  but  for  their  brotherhood, 
and  for  their  calm  indifference  to  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  whom  they  did  not  care  to  receive  into 
their  kingdom  of  Bohemia.  There  is  human 
nature  in  this ;  more  human  nature  than  there  is  in 
most  provincialism.  Take  a  community  of  one 
hundred  people  and  let  any  ten  of  its  members 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       363 

join  themselves  together  and  dictate  the  terms  on 
which  an  eleventh  may  be  admitted  to  their  band. 
The  whole  remaining  eighty-nine  will  quarrel  for 
the  twelfth  place.  But  take  a  community  of  a 
thousand,  and  let  ten  such  internal  groups  be 
formed,  and  every  group  will  have  to  canvass 
more  or  less  hard  to  increase  its  number.  For  the 
other  nine  hundred  people,  being  able  to  pick  and 
choose,  are  likely  to  feel  a  deep  indifference  to  the 
question  of  joining  any  segregation  at  all.  If 
group  No.  2  says,  "Come  into  my  crowd,  I  under 
stand  they  don't  want  you  in  No.  1, ' '  the  individual 
replies :  "What  the  deuce  do  I  care  about  No.  1  or 
you  either?  Here  are  Nos.  4,  5,  6,  and  7  all  beg 
ging  for  me.  If  you  and  No.  1  keep  on  in  your 
conceit  you  '11  find  yourselves  left  out  in  the  cold. ' ' 

And  as  it  frequently  happens  to  turn  out  that 
way,  the  dweller  in  a  great  city  soon  learns,  in  the 
first  place,  that  he  is  less  important  than  he 
thought  he  was ;  in  the  second  place,  that  he  is  less 
unimportant  than  some  people  would  like  to  have 
him  think  himself.  All  of  which  goes  to  show  that 
when  New  Yorkers  looked  with  easy  tolerance,  and 
some  of  them  with  open  admiration,  upon  the 
Bohemians  at  Pfaff  's  saloon,  they  had  come  to  be 
citizens  of  no  mean  city,  and  were  making  metro 
politan  growth. 

A  Bohemian  may  be  defined  as  the  only  kind  of 
gentleman  permanently  in  temporary  difficulties 
who  is  neither  a  sponge  nor  a  cheat.  He  is  a  type 
that  has  existed  in  all  ages  and  always  will  exist. 
He  is  a  man  who  lacks  certain  elements  necessary 


364       THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

to  success  in  this  world,  and  who  manages  to  keep 
fairly  even  with  the  world,  by  dint  of  ingenious 
shift  and  expedient ;  never  fully  succeeding,  never 
wholly  failing.  He  is  a  man,  in  fact,  who  can't 
swim;  but  can  tread  water.  But  he  never,  never, 
never  calls  himself  a  Bohemian — at  least,  in  a 
somewhat  wide  experience,  I  have  known  only  two 
that  ever  did,  and  one  of  these  was  a  baronet.  As 
a  rule,  if  you  overhear  a  man  approach  his 
acquaintance  with  the  formula,  "As  one  Bohemian 
to  another,"  you  may  make  up  your  mind  that  that 
man  means  an  assault  upon  the  other  man's 
pocket-book,  and  that  if  the  assault  is  successful 
the  damages  will  never  be  repaired.  That  man  is 
not  a  Bohemian;  he  is  a  beat.  Your  true  Bohe 
mian  always  calls  himself  by  some  euphemistic 
name.  He  is  always  a  gentleman  at  odds  with  for 
tune,  who  rolled  in  wealth  yesterday  and  will  to 
morrow,  but  who  at  present  is  willing  to  do  any 
work  that  he  is  sure  will  make  him  immortal,  and 
that  he  thinks  may  get  him  the  price  of  a  supper. 
And  very  often  he  lends  more  largely  than  he  bor 
rows. 

Now  the  crowd  which  the  old  gentleman  saw  in 
the  saloon — and  he  saw  George  Arnold,  Fitz- 
James  O'Brien,  and  perhaps  N.  P.  Shepard — was 
a  crowd  of  Bohemians  rather  by  its  own  christeri- 
ing  than  by  any  ordinary  application  of  the  word. 
They  were  all  young  men  of  ability,  recognized  in 
their  profession.  Of  those  who  have  died,  two  at 
least  have  honor  and  literary  consideration  to 
day  ;  of  those  who  lived,  some  have  obtained  celeb- 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       365 

rity,  and  all  a  reasonable  measure  of  success. 
Miirger's  Bohemians  would  have  called  them 
Philistines.  But  they  have  started  a  tradition 
that  will  survive  from  generation  unto  generation ; 
a  tradition  of  delusion  so  long  as  the  glamor  of 
poetry,  romance,  and  adventure  hang  around  the 
mysteriously  attractive  personality  of  a  Bohe 
mian.  Ever  since  then  New  York  has  had,  and 
always  will  have,  the  posing  Bohemian  and  his 
worshippers. 

Ten  or  fifteen  years  ago  the  "French  Quarter" 
got  its  literary  introduction  to  New  York,  and  the 
fact  was  revealed  that  it  was  the  resort  of  real 
Bohemians — young  men  who  actually  lived  by 
their  wit  and  their  wits,  and  who  talked  brilliantly 
over  fifty-cent  table-d  'hote  dinners.  This  was  the 
signal  for  the  would-be  Bohemian  to  emerge  from 
his  dainty  flat  or  his  oak-panelled  studio  in  Wash 
ington  Square,  hasten  down  to  Bleecker  or  Hous 
ton  Street,  there  to  eat  chicken  badly  braise,  fried 
chuck-steak,  and  soggy  spaghetti,  and  to  drink 
thin  blue  wine  and  chicory-coffee  that  he  might 
listen  to  the  feast  of  witticism  and  flow  of  soul  that 
he  expected  to  find  at  the  next  table.  If  he  found 
it  at  all,  he  lost  it  at  once.  If  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  young  men  at  the  next  table, 
he  found  them  to  be  young  men  of  his  own  sort — 
agreeable  young  boys  just  from  Columbia  and 
Harvard,  who  were  painting  impressionless  pic 
tures  for  the  love  of  Art  for  Art 's  sake,  and  living 
very  comfortably  on  their  paternal  allowances. 
Any  one  of  the  crowd  would  think  the  world  was 


366       THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

coming  to  pieces  if  he  woke  up  in  the  morning  to 
wonder  where  he  could  get  his  breakfast  on  credit, 
and  wonder  where  he  could  earn  enough  money  to 
buy  his  dinner.  Yet  these  innocent  youngsters 
continue  to  pervade  "The  Quarter,"  as  they  call 
it ;  and  as  time  goes  on,  by  much  drinking  of  ponies 
of  brandy  and  smoking  of  cigarettes,  they  get  to 
fancy  that  they  themselves  are  Bohemians.  And 
when  they  get  tired  of  it  all  and  want  some 
thing  good  to  eat,  they  go  up  to  Delmonico's  and 
get  it. 

And  their  Bohemian  predecessors,  who  sought 
the  French  fifty-cent  restaurants  as  their  highest 
attainable  luxury — what  has  become  of  them? 
They  have  fled  before  that  incursion  as  a  flock  of 
birds  before  a  whirlwind.  They  leave  behind 
them,  perhaps,  a  few  of  the  more  mean-spirited 
among  them,  who  are  willing  to  degenerate  into 
fawners  on  the  rich,  and  habitual  borrowers  of 
trifling  sums.  But  the  true  Bohemians,  the  men 
who  have  the  real  blood  in  their  veins,  they  must 
seek  some  other  meeting-place  where  they  can 
pitch  their  never-abiding  tents,  and  sit  at  their 
humble  feasts  to  recount  to  each  other,  amid  ap 
preciative  laughter,  the  tricks  and  devices  and 
pitiful  petty  schemes  for  the  gaining  of  daily  bread 
that  make  up  for  them  the  game  and  comedy  of 
life.  Tell  me  not  that  Ishmael  does  not  enjoy  the 
wilderness.  The  Lord  made  him  for  it,  and  he 
would  not  be  happy  anywhere  else. 

There  was  one  such  child  of  fortune  once,  who 
brought  his  blue  eyes  over  from  Ireland.  His 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       367 

harmless  and  gentle  life  closed  after  too  many 
years  of  direst  misfortune.  But  as  long  as  lie 
wandered  in  the  depths  of  poverty  there  was  one 
strange  and  mysterious  thing  about  him.  His 
clothes,  always  well  brushed  and  well  carried  on  a 
gallant  form,  often  showed  cruel  signs  of  wear, 
especially  when  he  went  for  a  winter  without  an 
overcoat.  But  shabby  as  his  garments  might 
grow,  empty  as  his  pockets  might  be,  his  linen  was 
always  spotless,  stiff,  and  fresh.  Now  everybody 
who  has  ever  had  occasion  to  consider  the  matter 
knows  that  by  the  aid  of  a  pair  of  scissors  the  life 
of  a  collar  or  of  a  pair  of  cuffs  can  be  prolonged 
almost  indefinitely — apparent  miracles  had  been 
performed  in  this  way.  But  no  pair  of  scissors 
will  pay  a  laundry  bill ;  and  finally  a  committee  of 
the  curious  waited  upon  this  student  of  economics 
and  asked  him  to  say  how  he  did  it.  He  was 
proud  and  delighted  to  tell  them. 

"I-I-I'll  tell  ye,  boys,"  he  said,  in  his  pleasant 
Dublin  brogue, ' 'but  'twas  I  that  thought  it  out.  I 
wash  them,  of  course,  in  the  basin — that's  easy 
enough;  but  you'd  think  I'd  be  put  to  it  to  iron 
them,  wouldn't  ye,  now?  Well,  I've  invinted  a 
substischoot  for  ironing — it's  me  big  books. 
Through  all  me  vicissichoods,  boys,  I  kept  me 
Bible  and  me  dictionary,  and  I  lay  the  collars  and 
cuffs  in  the  undher  one  and  get  the  leg  of  the 
bureau  on  top  of  them  both — and  you'd  be  sur 
prised  at  the  artistic  effect." 

There  is  no  class  in  society  where  the  sponge, 
the  toady,  the  man  who  is  willing  to  receive 


368       THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

socially  without  giving  in  return,  is  more  quickly 
found  out  or  more  heartily  disowned  than  among 
the  genuine  Bohemians.  He  is  to  them  a  traitor, 
he  is  one  who  plays  the  game  unfairly,  one  who  is 
willing  to  fill  his  belly  by  means  to  which  they  will 
not  resort,  lax  and  fantastic  as  is  their  social  code. 
Do  you  know,  for  instance,  what  "Jackaling"  is  in 
New  York?  A  Jackal  is  a  man  generally  of  good 
address,  and  capable  of  a  display  of  good  fellow 
ship  combined  with  much  knowledge  of  literature 
and  art,  and  a  vast  and  intimate  acquaintance  with 
writers,  musicians,  and  managers.  He  makes  it 
his  business  to  haunt  hotels,  theatrical  agencies, 
and  managers'  offices,  and  to  know  whenever,  in 
his  language,  "a  new  jay  comes  to  town."  The 
jay  he  is  after  is  some  man  generally  from  the 
smaller  provincial  cities,  who  has  artistic  or 
theatrical  aspirations  and  a  pocketful  of  money. 
It  is  the  Jackal's  mission  to  turn  this  jay  into  an 
"angel."  Has  the  gentleman  from  Lockport 
come  with  the  score  of  a  comic  opera  under  his 
arm,  and  two  thousand  dollars  in  his  pocket? 
Two  thousand  dollars  will  not  go  far  toward  the 
production  of  a  comic  opera  in  these  days,  and  the 
jay  finds  that  out  later;  but  not  until  after  the 
Jackal  has  made  him  intimately  acquainted  with  a 
very  gentlemanly  and  experienced  manager  who 
thinks  that  it  can  be  done  for  that  price  with  strict 
economy.  Has  the  young  man  of  pronounced 
theatrical  talent  arrived  from  Keokuk  with  gold 
and  a  thirst  for  fame?  The  Jackal  knows  just  the 
dramatist  who  will  write  him  the  play  that  he 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       369 

ought  to  star  in.  Does  the  wealthy  and  important 
person  from  Podunk  desire  to  back  something 
absolutely  safe  and  sure  in  the  line  of  theatrical 
speculation?  The  Jackal  has  the  very  thing  for 
which  he  is  looking.  And  in  all  these,  and  in  all 
similar  contingencies,  it  is  a  poor  Jackal  who  does 
not  get  his  commission  at  both  ends. 

The  Jackal  may  do  all  these  things,  but  he  may 
not,  if  he  is  treated,  fail  to  treat  in  return.  I  do 
not  mean  to  say  at  all  that  Jackaling  is  a  business 
highly  esteemed,  even  in  darkest  Bohemia,  but  it 
is  considered  legitimate,  and  I  hope  that  no  gen 
tleman  doing  business  in  Wall  Street,  or  on  the 
Consolidated  Exchange,  will  feel  too  deeply 
grieved  when  he  learns  the  fact. 

But  where  have  the  real  Bohemians  fled  to  from 
the  presence  of  the  too-well-disposed  and  too- 
wealthy  children  of  the  Benedick  and  the  Holbein? 
Not  where  they  are  likely  to  find  him,  you  may  be 
sure.  The  true  Bohemian  does  not  carry  his  true 
address  on  his  card.  In  fact,  he  is  delicate  to  the 
point  of  sensitiveness  about  allowing  any  publicity 
to  attach  to  his  address.  He  communicates  it  con 
fidentially  to  those  with  whom  he  has  business 
dealings,  but  he  carefully  conceals  it  from  the  pry 
ing  world.  As  soon  as  the  world  knows  it  he 
moves.  I  once  asked  a  chief  of  the  Bohemian 
tribe  whose  residence  was  the  world,  but  whose 
temporary  address  was  sometimes  Paris,  why  he 
had  moved  from  the  Quartier  Latin  to  a  place  in 
Montmartre. 

"Had  to,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  answered,  with 


370       THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

dignity;  "why  if  you  live  over  on  that  side  of  the 
river  they'll  call  you  a  Bohemian!" 

In  Paris  the  home  of  wit  in  poverty  has  been 
moved  across  the  Seine  to  the  south  side  of  the  hill 
up  which  people  climb  to  make  pilgrimages  to  the 
Moulin  Eouge  and  the  church  of  St.  Pierre  de 
Montmartre.  In  New  York  it  has  been  moved 
not  only  across  that  river  of  human  intercourse 
that  we  call  Broadway — a  river  with  a  tidal  ebb 
and  flow  of  travel  and  traffic — but  across  a  wilder, 
stranger,  and  more  turbulent  flood  called  the 
Bowery,  to  a  region  of  which  the  well-fed  and 
prosperous  New  Yorker  knows  very,  very  little. 

As  more  foreigners  walk  on  the  Bowery  than 
walk  on  any  other  street  in  New  York ;  and  as  more 
different  nationalities  are  represented  there  than 
are  represented  in  any  other  street  in  New  York ; 
and  as  the  foreigners  all  say  that  the  Bowery  is 
the  most  marvellous  thoroughfare  in  the  world,  I 
think  we  are  justified  in  assuming  that  there  is  lit 
tle  reason  to  doubt  that  the  foreigners  are  entirely 
right  in  the  matter,  especially  as  their  opinion 
coincides  with  that  of  every  American  who  has 
ever  made  even  a  casual  attempt  to  size  up  the 
Bowery. 

No  one  man  can  thoroughly  know  a  great  city. 
People  say  that  Dickens  knew  London,  but  I  am 
sure  that  Dickens  would  never  have  said  it.  He 
knew  enough  of  London  to  know  that  no  one 
human  mind,  no  one  mortal  life  can  take  in  the 
complex  intensity  of  a  metropolis.  Try  to  count 
a  million,  and  then  try  to  form  a  conception  of  the 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       371 

impossibility  of  learning  all  the  ins  and  outs  of 
the  domicile  of  a  million  men,  women,  and  children. 
I  have  met  men  who  thought  they  knew  New  York, 
but  I  have  never  met  a  man — except  a  man  from  a 
remote  rural  district — who  thought  he  knew  the 
Bowery.  There  are  agriculturists,  however,  all 
over  this  broad  land  who  have  entertained  that 
supposition  and  acted  on  it — but  never  twice. 
The  sense  of  humor  is  the  saving  grace  of  the 
American  people. 

I  first  made  acquaintance  with  the  Bowery  as  a 
boy  through  some  lithographic  prints.  I  was  in 
terested  in  them,  for  I  was  looking  forward  to 
learning  to  shoot,  and  my  father  had  told  me  that 
there  used  to  be  pretty  good  shooting  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  Bowery,  though,  of  course,  not  so  good 
as  there  was  farther  up  near  the  Block  House,  or 
in  the  wood  beyond.  Besides,  the  pictures  showed 
a  very  pretty  country  road  with  big  trees  on  both 
sides  of  it,  and  comfortable  farmhouses,  and,  I 
suppose,  an  inn  with  a  swinging  sign.  I  was  dis 
appointed  at  first,  when  I  heard  it  had  been  all 
built  up,  but  I  was  consoled  when  the  glories  of  the 
real  Bowery  were  unfolded  to  my  youthful  mind, 
and  I  heard  of  the  butcher-boy  and  his  red  sleigh ; 
of  the  Bowery  Theatre  and  peanut  gallery,  and  the 
gods,  and  Mr.  Eddy,  and  the  war-cry  they  made  of 
his  name — and  a  glorious  old  war-cry  it  is,  better 
than  any  college  cries  ever  invented:  "Hi,  Eddy- 
eddy-eddy-eddy-eddy-eddy-eddy-eddy-eddy ! ' '  of 
Mose  and  his  silk  locks;  of  the  fire-engine  fights, 
and  Big  Six,  and  "Wash-her-down!"  of  the  pump 


372       THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

at  Houston  Street;  of  what  happened  to  Mr. 
Thackeray  when  he  talked  to  the  tough ;  of  many 
other  delightful  things  that  made  the  Bowery,  to 
my  young  imagination,  one  long  avenue  of  ro 
mance,  mystery,  and  thrilling  adventure.  And 
the  first  time  I  went  in  the  flesh  to  the  Bowery  was 
to  go  with  an  elderly  lady  to  an  optician's  shop. 

"And  is  this — Yarrow? — This  the  stream 
Of  which  my  fancy  cherished, 
So  faithfully,  a  waking  dream? 
An  image  that  hath  perished! 
O  that  some  minstrel's  harp  were  near, 
To  utter  notes  of  gladness, 
And  chase  this  silence  from  the  air, 
That  fills  my  heart  with  sadness !" 

But  the  study  of  the  Bowery  that  I  began  that 
day  has  gone  on  with  interruption  for  a  good  many 
years,  and  I  think  now  that  I  am  arriving  at  the 
point  where  I  have  some  faint  glimmerings  of  the 
littleness  of  my  knowledge  of  it  as  compared  with 
what  there  is  to  be  known.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  I  can  begin  to  size  the  disproportion  up  with 
any  accuracy,  but  I  think  I  have  accomplished  a 
good  deal  in  getting  as  far  as  I  have. 

The  Bowery  is  not  a  large  place,  for  I  think  that, 
properly  speaking,  it  is  a  place  rather  than  a 
street  or  avenue.  It  is  an  irregularly  shaped 
ellipse,  of  notable  width  in  its  widest  part.  It  be 
gins  at  Chatham  Square,  which  lies  on  the  parallel 
of  the  sixth  Broadway  block  above  City  Hall,  and 
loses  its  identity  at  the  Cooper  Union  where  Third 
and  Fourth  Avenues  begin,  so  that  it  is  a  scant 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       373 

mile  in  all.  But  it  is  the  alivest  mile  on  the  face 
of  the  earth.  And  it  either  bounds  or  bisects  that 
square  mile  that  the  statisticians  say  is  the  most 
densely  populated  square  mile  on  the  face  of  the 
globe.  This  is  the  heart  of  the  New  York  tene 
ment  district.  As  the  Bowery  is  the  Broadway  of 
the  East  Side,  the  street  of  its  pleasures,  it  would 
be  interesting  enough  if  it  opened  up  only  this  one 
densely  populated  district.  But  there  is  much 
more  to  contribute  to  its  infinite  variety.  It 
serves  the  same  purpose  for  the  Chinese  colony  in 
Mott,  Pell,  and  Doyers  Streets,  and  for  the  Italian 
swarms  in  Mulberry  Bend,  the  most  picturesque 
and  interesting  slum  I  have  ever  seen,  and  I  am  an 
ardent  collector  of  slums.  I  have  missed  art  gal 
leries  and  palaces  and  theatres  and  cathedrals 
(cathedrals  particularly)  in  various  and  sundry 
cities,  but  I  don't  think  I  ever  missed  a  slum. 
Mulberry  Bend  is  a  narrow  bend  in  Mulberry 
Street,  a  tortuous  ravine  of  all  tenement  houses, 
and  it  is  so  full  of  people  that  the  throngs  going 
and  coming  spread  off  the  sidewalk  nearly  to  the 
middle  of  the  street.  There  they  leave  a  little 
lane  for  the  babies  to  play  in.  No,  they  never 
get  run  over.  There  is  a  perfect  understanding 
between  the  babies  and  the  peddlers  who  drive 
their  wagons  in  Mulberry  Bend.  The  crowds  are 
in  the  street  partly  because  much  of  the  sidewalk 
and  all  of  the  gutter  is  taken  up  with  venders' 
stands,  which  give  its  characteristic  feature  to 
Mulberry  Bend.  There  are  displayed  more  and 
stranger  wares  than  uptown  people  ever  heard  of. 


374       THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

Probably  the  edibles  are  in  the  majority,  cer 
tainly  they  are  the  queerest  part  of  the  show. 
There  are  trays  and  bins  there  in  the  Bend,  con 
taining  dozens  and  dozens  of  things  that  you 
would  never  guess  were  meant  to  eat  if  you  didn't 
happen  to  see  a  ham  or  a  string  of  sausages  or 
some  other  familiar  object  among  them.  But  the 
color  of  the  Bend — and  its  color  is  its  strong 
point — comes  from  its  display  of  wearing  ap 
parel  and  candy.  A  lady  can  go  out  in  Mul 
berry  Bend  and  purchase  every  article  of  ap 
parel,  external  or  private  and  personal,  that 
she  ever  heard  of,  and  some  that  she  never  heard 
of,  and  she  can  get  them  of  any  shade  or  hue.  If 
she  likes  what  they  call  "Liberty"  colors — soft, 
neutral  tones — she  can  get  them  from  the  second 
hand  dealers  whose  goods  have  all  the  softest  of 
shades  that  age  and  exposure  can  give  them.  But 
if  she  likes,  as  I  do,  bright,  cheerful  colors,  she  can 
get  tints  in  Mulberry  Bend  that  you  could  warm 
your  hands  on.  Reds,  greens,  and  yellows  pre 
ponderate,  and  Nature  herself  would  own  that  the 
Italians  could  give  her  points  on  inventing  green 
and  not  exert  themselves  to  do  it.  The  pure  ar 
senical  tones  are  preferred  in  the  Bend,  and,  by 
the  bye,  anybody  who  remembers  the  days  when 
ladies  wore  magenta  and  solferino,  and  wants  to 
have  those  dear  old  colors  set  his  teeth  on  edge 
again,  can  go  to  the  Bend  and  find  them  there. 
The  same  dye-stuffs  that  are  popular  in  the  dress- 
goods  are  equally  popular  in  the  candy,  and  candy 
is  a  chief  product  of  Mulberry  Bend.  It  is  piled 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       375 

up  in  reckless  profusion  on  scores  of  stands,  here, 
there,  and  everywhere,  and  to  call  the  general  ef 
fect  festal,  would  be  to  speak  slightingly  of  it. 
The  stranger  who  enters  Mulberry  Bend  and  sees 
the  dress-goods  and  the  candies  is  sure  to  think 
that  the  place  has  been  decorated  to  receive  him. 
No,  nobody  will  hurt  you  if  you  go  down  there  and 
are  polite,  and  mind  your  own  business,  and  do  not 
step  on  the  babies.  But  if  you  stare  about  and 
make  comments,  I  think  those  people  will  be  justi 
fied  in  suspecting  that  the  people  uptown  don't 
always  know  how  to  behave  themselves  like  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  so  do  not  bring  disgrace  on  your 
neighborhood,  and  do  not  go  in  a  cab.  You  will 
not  bother  the  babies,  but  you  will  find  it  trying  to 
your  own  nerves. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  money  in  Mulberry 
Street,  and  some  of  it  overflows  into  the  Bowery. 
From  this  street  also  the  Baxter  Street  variety  of 
Jews  find  their  way  into  the  Bowery.  These  are 
the  Jew  toughs,  and  there  is  no  other  type  of  Jew 
at  all  like  them  in  all  New  York's  assortment  of 
Hebrew  types,  which  cannot  be  called  meagre.  Of 
the  Jewish  types  New  York  has,  as  the  printers 
say,  "a  full  ease." 

But  it  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  Bowery  that 
there  lies  a  world  to  which  the  world  north  of 
Fourteenth  Street  is  a  select  family  party.  I 
could  not  give  even  a  partial  list  of  its  elements. 
Here  dwell  the  Polish  Jews  with  their  back-yards 
full  of  chickens.  The  police  raid  those  back-yards 
with  ready  assiduity,  but  the  yards  are  always 


376       THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA 

promptly  replenished.  It  is  the  police  against  a 
religion,  and  the  odds  are  against  the  police.  The 
Jew  will  die  for  it,  if  needs  be,  but  his  chickens 
must  be  killed  kosher  way  and  not  Christian  way, 
but  that  is  only  the  way  of  the  Jews:  the  Hun 
garians,  the  Bohemians,  the  Anarchist  Russians, 
the  Scandinavians  of  all  sorts  who  come  up  from 
the  wharfs,  the  Irish,  who  are  there,  as  every 
where,  the  Portuguese  Jews,  and  all  the  rest  of 
them  who  help  to  form  that  city  within  a  city — 
have  they  not,  all  of  them,  ways  of  their  own?  I 
speak  of  this  Babylon  only  to  say  that  here  and 
there  on  its  borders,  and,  once  in  a  way,  in  its  very 
heart,  are  rows  or  blocks  of  plain  brick  houses, 
homely,  decent,  respectable  relics  of  the  days  when 
the  sturdy,  steady  tradesfolk  of  New  York  built 
here  the  homes  that  they  hoped  to  leave  to  their 
children.  They  are  boarding-  and  lodging-houses 
now,  poor  enough,  but  proud  in  their  respectabil 
ity  of  the  past,  although  the  tide  of  ignorance, 
poverty,  vice,  filth,  and  misery  is  surging  to  their 
doors  and  their  back-yard  fences.  And  here,  in 
hall  bedrooms,  in  third-story  backs  and  fronts,  and 
in  half-story  attics,  live  the  Bohemians  of  to-day, 
and  with  them  those  other  stragglers  of  poverty 
who  are  destined  to  become  "successful  men"  in 
various  branches  of  art,  literature,  science,  trade, 
or  finance.  Of  these  latter  our  children  will  speak 
with  hushed  respect,  as  men  who  rose  from  small 
beginnings ;  and  they  will  go  into  the  school-read 
ers  of  our  grandchildren  along  with  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  that  contemptible  wretch  who  got  to 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA       377 

be  a  banker  because  he  picked  up  a  pin,  as  ex 
amples  of  what  perseverance  and  industry  can 
accomplish.  From  what  I  remember  I  foresee 
that  those  children  will  hate  them. 

I  am  not  going  to  give  you  the  addresses  of  the 
cheap  restaurants  where  these  poor,  cheerful 
children  of  adversity  are  now  eating  goulasch  and 
Kartoffelsalad  instead  of  the  spaghetti  and  tripe 
a  la  mode  de  Caen  of  their  old  haunts.  I  do  not 
know  them,  and  if  I  did,  I  should  not  hand  them 
over  to  the  mercies  of  the  intrusive  young  men 
from  the  studios  and  the  bachelors'  chambers.  I 
wish  them  good  digestion  of  their  goulaseh:  for 
those  that  are  to  climb,  I  wish  that  they  may  keep 
the  generous  and  faithful  spirit  of  friendly  pov 
erty;  for  those  that  are  to  go  on  to  the  end  in  fruit 
less  struggle  and  in  futile  hope,  I  wish  for  them 
that  that  end  may  come  in  some  gentle  and  hap 
pier  region  lying  to  the  westward  of  that  black  tide 
that  ebbs  and  flows  by  night  and  day  along  the 
Bowery  Way. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 

IN  one  of  his  engaging  essays  Mr.  John  Bur 
roughs  tells  of  meeting  an  English  lady  in 
Holyoke,  Mass.,  who  complained  to  him  that 
there  were  no  foot-paths  for  her  to  walk  on, 
whereupon  the  poet-naturalist  was  moved  to  an 
eloquent  expression  of  his  grief  over  America's 
inferiority  in  the  foot-path  line  to  the  "mellow 
England"  which  in  one  brief  month  had  won  him 
for  her  own.  Now  I  know  very  little  of  Holyoke, 
Mass.,  of  my  own  knowledge.  As  a  lecture-town  I 
can  say  of  it  that  its  people  are  polite,  but  ex 
tremely  undemonstrative,  and  that  the  lecturer  is 
expected  to  furnish  the  refreshments.  It  is  quite 
likely  that  the  English  lady  was  right,  and  that 
there  are  no  foot-paths  there. 

I  wish  to  say,  however,  that  I  know  the  English 
lady.  I  know  her — many,  many  of  her — and  I 
have  met  her  a-many  times.  I  know  the  enchanted 
fairyland  in  which  her  wistful  memory  loves  to 
linger.  Often  and  often  have  I  watched  her 
father's  wardian-case  grow  into  "papa's  hot 
houses;"  the  plain  brick  house  that  he  leases,  out 
Netting  Hill  way,  swell  into  "our  family  man 
sion,"  and  the  cottage  that  her  family  once  occu 
pied  at  Stoke  Wigglesworth  change  itself  into  "the 
country  place  that  papa  had  to  give  up  because  it 

378 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  PATH  379 

took  so  much  of  his  time  to  see  that  it  was  properly 
kept  up."  And  long  experience  in  this  direction 
enables  me  to  take  that  little  remark  about  the 
foot-paths,  and  to  derive  from  it  a  large  amount 
of  knowledge  about  Holyoke  and  its  surroundings 
that  I  should  not  have  had  of  my  own  getting,  for 
I  have  never  seen  Holyoke  except  by  night,  nor 
am  I  like  to  see  it  again. 

From  that  brief  remark  I  know  these  things 
about  Holyoke:  It  is  surrounded  by  a  beautiful 
country,  with  rolling  hills  and  a  generally  diversi 
fied  landscape.  There  are  beautiful  green  fields, 
I  am  sure.  There  is  a  fine  river  somewhere 
about,  and  I  think  there  must  be  waterfalls  and 
a  pretty  little  creek.  The  timber  must  be  very 
fine,  and  probably  there  are  some  superb  New 
England  elms.  The  roads  must  be  good,  uncom 
monly  good ;  and  there  must  be  unusual  facilities 
for  getting  around  and  picknicking  and  finding 
charming  views  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 

Nor  does  it  require  much  art  to  learn  all  this 
from  that  pathetic  plaint  about  the  foot-paths. 
For  the  game  of  the  Briton  in  a  foreign  land  is 
ever  the  same.  It  changes  not  from  generation 
unto  generation.  Bid  him  to  the  feast  and  set 
before  him  all  your  wealth  of  cellar  and  garner. 
Spread  before  him  the  meat,  heap  up  for  him  the 
fruits  of  the  season.  Weigh  down  the  board  with 
every  vegetable  that  the  gardener's  art  can  bring 
to  perfection  in  or  out  of  its  time — white-potatoes, 
sweet-potatoes,  lima-beans,  string-beans,  fresh 
peas,  sweet-corn,  lettuce,  cauliflower,  Brussels 


380  THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 

sprouts,  tomatoes,  muskmelons  and  watermelons 
— all  you  will — no  word  will  you  hear  from  him 
till  he  has  looked  over  the  whole  assortment  and 
discovered  that  you  have  not  the  vegetable  mar 
row,  and  that  you  do  not  raise  it.  Then  he  will 
break  forth  and  cry  for  his  vegetable  marrow. 
All  these  things  are  naught  to  him  if  he  cannot 
have  his  vegetable  marrow,  and  he  will  tell  you 
about  the  exceeding  goodness  and  rarity  of  the 
vegetable  marrow,  until  you  will  figure  it  in  your 
mind  like  unto  the  famous  mangosteen  fruit  of  the 
Malay  Peninsula,  he  who  once  eats  whereof  tastes 
never  again  any  other  fruit  of  the  earth,  finding 
them  all  as  dust  and  ashes  by  the  side  of  the  man 
gosteen. 

That  is  to  say,  this  will  happen  unless  you  have 
eaten  of  the  vegetable  marrow,  and  have  the  pres 
ence  of  mind  to  recall  to  the  Briton's  memory  the 
fact  that  it  is  nothing  but  a  second-choice  summer 
squash;  after  which  the  meal  will  proceed  in 
silence.  Just  so  might  Mr.  Burroughs  have 
brought  about  a  sudden  change  in  the  topic  of  con 
versation  by  telling  the  English  lady  that  where 
the  American  treads  out  a  path  he  builds  a  road 
by  the  side  of  it. 

To  tell  the  truth,  I  think  that  the  English  foot 
path  is  something  pathetic  beyond  description. 
The  better  it  is,  the  older,  the  better  worn,  the 
more  it  speaks  with  a  sad  significance  of  the  long 
established  inequalities  of  old-world  society.  It 
means  too  often  the  one  poor,  pitiful  right  of  a 
poor  man,  the  man  who  must  walk  all  his  life,  to 


THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH  381 

go  hither  and  thither  through  the  rich  man's 
country.  The  lady  may  walk  it  for  pleasure  if 
she  likes,  but  the  man  who  walks  it  because  he 
must,  turns  up  a  little  by-path  leading  from  it  to 
a  cottage  that  no  industry  or  thrift  will  make  his 
own;  and  for  him  to  aspire  to  a  roadway  to  his 
front-door  would  be  a  gross  piece  of  impertinence 
in  a  man  of  his  station.  It  is  the  remembrance  of 
just  such  right-of-way  foot-paths  as  the  English 
lady's  sad  heart  yearned  after  that  reconciles  me 
to  a  great  many  hundreds  of  houses  that  have 
recently  been  built  in  the  State  of  New  Jersey 
after  designs  out  of  books  that  cost  all  the  way 
from  twenty-five  cents  to  a  dollar.  Archi 
tecturally  these  are  very  much  inferior  to  the 
English  cottager's  home,  and  they  occasionally 
waken  thoughts  of  incendiarism.  But  the  people 
who  live  in  them  are  people  who  insist  on  having 
roads  right  to  their  front-doors,  and  I  have  heard 
them  do  some  mighty  interesting  talking  in  town- 
meeting  about  the  way  those  roads  shall  be  laid 
and  who  shall  do  the  laying. 

As  I  have  before  remarked,  I  am  quite  willing 
to  believe  that  Holyoke  is  a  pathless  wilderness, 
in  the  English  lady's  sense.  But  when  Mr.  Bur 
roughs  makes  the  generalization  that  there  are  no 
foot-paths  in  this  country,  it  seems  to  me  he  must 
be  letting  his  boyhood  get  too  far  away  from  him. 

For  there  are  foot-paths  enough,  certainly.  Of 
course  an  old  foot-path  in  this  country  always 
serves  to  mark  the  line  of  a  new  road  when  the 
people  who  had  worn  it  take  to  keeping  horses. 


382  THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 

But  there  are  thousands  of  miles  of  paths  criss 
crossing  the  countryside  in  all  of  our  older 
States  that  will  never  see  the  dirt-cart  or  the  stone 
crusher  in  the  lifetime  of  any  man  alive  to-day. 

Mr.  Burroughs — especially  when  he  is  pub 
lished  in  the  dainty  little  Douglas  duodecimos — 
is  one  of  the  authors  whose  books  a  busy  man 
reserves  for  a  pocket-luxury  of  travel.  So  it  was 
that,  a  belated  reader,  I  came  across  his  lament 
over  our  pathlessness,  some  years  after  my  having 
had  a  hand — or  a  foot,  as  you  might  say — in  the 
making  of  a  certain  cross-lots  foot-way  which  led 
me  to  study  the  windings  and  turnings  of  the 
longer  countryside  walks  until  I  got  the  idea  of 
writing  "The  Story  of  a  Path."  I  am  sorry  to 
contradict  Mr.  Burroughs,  but,  if  there  are  no 
foot-paths  in  America,  what  becomes  of  the  many 
good  golden  hours  that  I  have  spent  in  well-tracked 
woodland  ways  and  in  narrow  foot-lanes  through 
the  wind-swept  meadow  grass?  I  cannot  give 
these  up ;  I  can  only  wish  that  Mr.  Burroughs  had 
been  my  companion  in  them. 

A  foot-path  is  the  most  human  thing  in  inani 
mate  nature.  Even  as  the  print  of  his  thumb 
reveals  the  old  offender  to  the  detectives,  so  the 
path  tells  you  the  sort  of  feet  that  wore  it.  Like 
the  human  nature  that  created  it,  it  starts  out  to 
go  straight  when  strength  and  determination 
shape  its  course,  and  it  goes  crooked  when  weak 
ness  lays  it  out.  Until  you  begin  to  study  them 
you  can  have  no  notion  of  the  differences  of  char 
acter  that  exist  among  foot-paths.  One  line  of 


THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH  383 

trodden  earth  seems  to  you  the  same  as  another. 
But  look!  Is  the  path  you  are  walking  on  fairly 
straight  from  point  to  point,  yet  deflected  to  avoid 
short  rises  and  falls,  and  is  it  worn  to  grade? 
That  is,  does  it  plough  a  deep  way  through  little 
humps, and  hillocks  something  as  a  street  is  cut 
down  to  grade?  If  you  see  this  path  before  you, 
you  may  be  sure  that  it  is  made  by  the  heavy 
shuffle  of  workingmen's  feet.  A  path  that  wavers 
from  side  to  side,  especially  if  the  turns  be  from 
one  bush  to  another,  and  that  is  only  a  light  trail 
making  an  even  line  of  wear  over  the  inequalities 
of  the  ground — that  is  a  path  that  children  make. 
The  path  made  by  the  business  man — the  man 
who  is  anxious  to  get  to  his  work  at  one  end  of 
the  day,  and  anxious  to  get  to  his  home  at  the 
other — is  generally  a  good  piece  of  engineering. 
This  type  of  man  makes  more  paths  in  this  coun 
try  than  he  does  in  any  other.  He  carries  his 
intelligence  and  his  energy  into  every  act  of  life, 
and  even  in  the  half-unconscious  business  of 
making  his  own  private  trail  he  generally  man 
ages  to  find  the  line  of  least  resistance  in  getting 
from  one  given  point  to  another. 

This  is  the  story  of  a  path : 

It  is  called  Reub  Levi's  Path,  because  Reuben 
Levi  Dodd  is  supposed  to  have  made  it,  some  time 
in  1830  or  thereabout,  when  he  built  his  house  on 
the  hill.  But  it  is  much  older  than  Reuben  Levi. 
He  probably  thought  he  was  telling  the  truth 
when,  forty  years  ago,  he  swore  to  having  broken 
the  path  himself  twenty  years  before,  through  the 


384  THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 

Jacobus  woods,  down  the  hill  and  across  the  flat 
lands  that  then  belonged  to  the  Onderdoncks,  and 
again  through  the  Ogden  woods  to  the  county 
road;  but  he  forgot  that  on  the  bright  June  day 
when  he  first  started  to  find  a  convenient  way 
through  the  woods  and  over  the  broad  lowland 
fields  from  his  own  front-door  to  that  of  his 
father-in-law,  Evert  Ogden,  and  then  through  Mr. 
Ogden 's  patch  of  woods  to  the  little  town  on  the 
bank  of  the  Passaic — he  forgot  that  for  a  little 
part  of  the  way  he  had  had  the  help  of  a  man 
whose  feet  had  long  before  done  with  walking  the 
paths  of  earth. 

The  forest,  for  it  was  a  forest  then,  was  full  of 
heavy  underwood  and  brush,  and  he  had  no  choice 
but  to  dodge  his  way  between  the  clumps.  But 
when  he  got  out  to  the  broad  open  space  on  the 
brow  of  the  hill,  where  no  trees  had  ever  grown, 
he  found  an  almost  tropical  growth  of  wild  grass 
and  azalea,  with  bull-brier  twining  over  every 
thing  in  every  direction.  He  found  it  worse  than 
the  dense  woods. 

"Drat  the  pesky  stuff, "  he  said  to  himself; 
"ain't  there  no  way  through  it?"  Then  as  he 
looked  about  he  spied  a  line  no  broader  than  his 
hand  at  the  bottom,  that  opened  clean  through 
the  bull-brier  and  the  bushes  across  the  open  to 
where  the  trees  began  again  on  the  down-slope  of 
the  hill.  Grass  was  growing  in  it,  but  he  knew 
it  for  an  old  trail. 

"'Twas  Pelatiah  Jinks  made  that,  I'll  bet  a 
shilling,"  he  said  to  himself,  remembering  the 


THE  STOEY  OF  A  PATH  385 

lonely  old  trapper  who  had  dwelt  on  that  moun 
tain  in  his  father's  time  He  had  once  seen  old 
man  Jinks'  powder-horn,  with  its  elaborate  carv 
ing,  done  in  the  long  solitary  hours  when  the  old 
man  sat  weather-bound  in  his  lofty  hermitage. 

"Jest  like  the  old  critter  to  make  a  bee-line 
track  like  that.  But  what  in  thunder  did  he  want 
to  go  that  way  across  the  clearing  for?  I'm  much 
obleeged  to  him  for  his  trail,  but  it  ain't  headed 
right  for  town." 

No,  it  was  not.  But  young  Dodd  did  not 
remember  that  the  trees  whose  tops  he  saw  just 
peeping  over  the  hill  were  young  things  of  forty 
years'  growth  that  had  taken  the  place  of  a  line 
of  ninety-year-old  chestnuts  that  had  died  down 
from  the  top  and  been  broken  down  by  the  wind 
shortly  after  old  Pelatiah  died.  The  line  that  the 
old  man  had  made  for  himself  took  him  straight 
to  the  one  little  hillock  where  he  could  look  over 
this  tall  screen  and  get  his  bearings  afresh  by  the 
glint  of  the  Passiac's  water  in  the  woody  valley 
below,  for  at  no  other  spot  along  that  ridge  was 
the  Passaic  visible. 

Now  in  this  one  act  of  Reuben  Levi  Dodd  you 
can  see  the  human  nature  that  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  all  path-making.  He  turned  aside  from  his 
straight  course  to  walk  in  the  easy  way  made  by 
another  man,  and  then  fetched  a  compass,  as  they 
used  to  say  in  the  Apostle  Paul's  time,  to  get  back 
to  his  straight  bearings.  Old  Pelatiah  had  a 
good  reason  for  deviating  from  his  straight  line 
to  the  town ;  young  Dodd  had  none,  except  that  it 


386  THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 

was  wiser  to  go  two  yards  around  than  to  go  one 
yard  straight  through  the  bull-brier.  Young 
Dodd  had  a  powder-horn  slung  from  his  shoulder 
that  morning,  and  the  powder-horn  had  some 
carving  on  it,  but  it  was  not  like  the  carving  on  old 
Pelatiah's  horn.  There  was  a  letter  E,  cut  with 
many  flourishes,  a  letter  L  cut  but  wanting  most  of 
its  flourishes,  and  a  letter  D  half  finished,  and 
crooked  at  that,  and  without  the  first  trace  of  a 
flourish.  That  was  the  way  his  powder-horn 
looked  that  day,  for  that  was  the  way  it  looked 
when  he  died,  and  his  son  sold  it  to  a  dealer  in 
antiquities. 

Young  Dodd  and  his  wife  found  it  lonely  living 
up  there  on  the  hill-top.  They  were  the  first  who 
had  pushed  so  far  back  from  the  river  and  the 
town.  Mrs.  Dodd,  who  had  an  active  and  ambi 
tious  spirit  in  her,  often  reproached  her  husband 
for  his  neglect  to  make  their  home  more  accessible 
to  her  old  friends  in  the  distant  town. 

"If  you'd  take  a  bill-hook,"  she  would  say, 
"and  clean  up  that  snake-fence  path  of  yours  a 
little,  maybe  folks  would  climb  up  here  to  see  us 
once  in  a  blue  moon.  It 's  all  well  enough  for  you 
with  your  breeches,  but  how  are  women  folks  to 
trail  their  frocks  through  that  brush?" 

Eeub  Levi  would  promise  and  promise,  and 
once  he  did  take  his  hook  and  chop  out  a  hundred 
yards  or  so.  But  things  did  not  mend  until  Big 
Bill  Turnbull,  known  all  over  the  county  as  the 
Hard  Job  Man,  married  a  widow  with  five  chil 
dren,  bought  a  little  patch  of  five  or  six  acres  next 


THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH  387 

to  Dodd's  big  farm,  built  a  log-cabin  for  himself 
and  his  family,  and  settled  down  there. 

Now  TurnbulPs  log-cabin  was  so  situated  that 
the  line  of  old  Pelatiah's  path  through  the  bull- 
brier,  extended  about  an  eighth  of  a  mile,  would 
just  reach  the  front-door.  Turnbull  saw  this,  and 
it  was  at  that  point  that  he  tapped  Reub  Levi's 
foot-path  to  the  town.  But  he  did  his  tapping 
after  his  own  fashion.  He  took  his  wife's  red 
flannel  petticoat  and  tied  it  to  a  sapling  on  the  top 
of  the  mound  that  the  old  hunter  used  to  climb, 
and  then  with  bill-hook  and  ax  he  cut  a  straight 
swath  through  the  woods.  He  even  cut  down 
through  the  roots  and  took  out  the  larger  stones. 

" That's  what  you'd  ought  to  have  done  long 
ago,  Reuben  Levi  Dodd,"  said  his  wife,  as  she 
watched  this  manifestation  of  energy. 

1 1 Guess  I  didn't  lose  much  by  waiting,"  Reub 
Levi  answered,  with  a  smile  that  did  not  look  as 
self-satisfied  as  he  tried  to  make  it.  "I'd  a-had 
to  do  it  myself,  and  now  the  other  fellow's  done 
it  for  me." 

And  thereafter  he  took  Bill  Turnbull 's  path  just 
where  it  touched  the  corner  of  his  own  cleared 
land.  But  Malvina  Dodd,  to  the  day  of  her  death, 
never  once  walked  that  way,  but,  going  and  com 
ing,  took  the  winding  track  that  her  husband  had 
laid  out  for  her  when  their  home  was  built. 

The  next  maker  of  the  path  was  a  boy  not  ten 
years  old.  His  name  was  Philip  Wessler,  and  he 
was  a  charity  boy  of  German  parentage,  who  had 
been  adopted  by  an  eccentric  old  man  in  the  town, 


388  THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 

an  herb-doctor.  This  calling  was  in  more  repute 
in  those  days  than  it  is  now.  Old  Doctor  Van 
Wagener  was  growing  feeble,  and  he  relied  on  the 
boy,  who  was  grateful  and  faithful,  to  search  for 
his  stock  of  simples.  When  the  weather  was 
favorable  they  would  go  together  through  the 
Ogden  woods,  and  across  the  meadows  to  where 
the  other  woods  began  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill. 
Here  the  old  man  would  sit  down  and  wait,  while 
the  boy  climbed  the  steep  hillside,  and  ranged 
hither  and  thither  in  his  search  for  sassafras  and 
liverwort,  and  a  hundred  and  one  plants,  flowers, 
and  herbs,  in  wrhich  the  doctor  found  virtue. 
When  he  had  collected  his  bundle  he  came  running 
down  the  path  to  where  the  doctor  sat,  and  left 
them  for  the  old  man  to  pick  and  choose  from, 
while  he  darted  off  after  another  load. 

He  did  a  boy's  work  with  the  path.  Steep 
grades  were  only  a  delight  to  him,  and  so  in  the 
course  of  a  year  or  two  he  trod  out,  or  jumped 
out,  a  series  of  break-neck  short-cuts.  William 
Turnbull — people  called  him  William  now,  since 
he  had  built  a  clap-board  house,  and  was  using  the 
log-cabin  for  a  barn — William  Turnbull,  observ 
ing  these  short-cuts,  approved  of  their  purpose, 
but  not  of  their  method.  He  went  through  the 
woods  once  or  twice  on  odd  days  after  his  hay 
was  in,  and  did  a  little  grading  with  a  mattock. 
Here  and  there  he  made  steps  out  of  flat  stones. 
He  told  his  wife  he  thought  it  would  be  some 
handier  for  her,  and  she  told  him — they  were  both 
from  Connecticut — that  it  was  quite  some  handier, 


THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH  389 

and  that  it  was  real  thoughtful  of  him;  and  that 
she  didn't  want  to  speak  no  ill  of  the  dead,  but  if 
her  first  man  had  been  that  considerate  he 
wouldn't  never  have  got  himself  drowned  going 
pickerel  fishing  in  March,  when  the  ice  was  so  soft 
you'd  suppose  rational  folks  would  keep  off  of  it. 

This  path  was  a  path  of  slow  formation.  It 
was  a  path  that  was  never  destined  to  become  a 
road.  It  is  only  in  mathematics  that  a  straight 
line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points. 
The  grade  through  the  Jacobus  woods  was  so 
steep  that  no  wagon  could  have  been  hauled  up  it 
over  the  mud  roads  of  that  day  and  generation. 
Lumber,  groceries,  and  all  heavy  truck  were  taken 
around  by  the  road  that  made  a  clean  sweep 
around  the  hill,  and  was  connected  with  the  Dodd 
and  Turnbull  farms  by  a  steep  but  short  lane 
which  the  workmen  had  made  wThen  they  built  the 
Dodd  house.  The  road  was  six  miles  to  the 
path's  three,  but  the  drive  was  shorter  than  the 
walk. 

There  was  a  time  when  it  looked  as  though  the 
path  might  really  develop  into  a  road.  That  was 
the  time  when  the  township,  having  outgrown  the 
county  roads,  began  to  build  roads  for  itself. 
But,  curiously  enough,  two  subjects  of  Great 
Britain  settled  the  fate  of  that  New  Jersey  path. 
The  controversy  between  Telford  and  Macadam 
was  settled  so  long  ago  in  Macadam's  favor,  that 
few  remember  the  point  of  difference  between 
those  two  noted  engineers.  Briefly  stated,  it  was 
this:  Mr.  Telford  said  it  was,  and  Mr.  Macadam 


390  THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH 

said  it  was  not,  necessary  to  put  a  foundation  of 
large  flat  stones,  set  on  end,  under  a  broken-stone 
road.  Reuben  Levies  township,  like  many  other 
New  Jersey  townships,  sided  with  Mr.  Telford, 
and  made  a  mistake  that  cost  thousands  of  dollars 
directly,  and  millions  indirectly.  To-day  New 
Jersey  can  show  the  way  to  all  her  sister  States  in 
road-building  and  road-keeping.  But  the  money 
she  wasted  on  costly  Telford  pavements  is  only 
just  beginning  to  come  back  to  her,  as  she  spreads 
out  mile  after  mile  of  the  economical  Macadam. 
Reuben  Levi's  township  squandered  money  on  a 
few  miles  of  Telford,  raised  the  tax-rate  higher 
than  it  had  ever  been  before,  and  opened  not  one 
inch  of  new  road  for  fifteen  years  thereafter. 
And  within  that  fifteen  years  the  canal  came  up 
on  one  side,  opening  a  way  to  the  great  manufac 
turing  town,  ten  miles  down  the  river;  and  then 
the  town  at  the  end  of  the  path  was  no  longer  the 
sole  base  of  supplies.  Then  the  railroad  came 
around  on  the  other  side  of  the  hill,  and  put  a 
flag-station  just  at  the  bottom  of  what  had  come  to 
be  known  as  Dodd's  Lane.  And  thus  by  the 
magic  of  nineteenth-century  science  New  York 
and  Newark  were  brought  nearer  to  the  hill-side 
farm  than  the  town  three  miles  away. 

But  year  by  year  new  feet  trod  the  path.  The 
laborers  who  cut  the  canal  found  it  and  took  it 
when  they  left  their  shanty  camp  to  go  to  town 
for  Saturday-night  frolics.  Then  William  Turn- 
bull,  who  had  enlarged  his  own  farm  as  far  as  he 
found  it  paid,  took  to  buying  land  and  building 


THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH  391 

houses  in  the  valley  beyond.  Keub  Levi  laughed 
at  him,  but  he  prospered  after  a  way  he  had,  and 
built  up  a  thriving  little  settlement  just  over  the 
canal.  The  people  of  this  little  settlement  soon 
made  a  path  that  connected  with  Reuben  Levies, 
by  way  of  William  Turnbull  's,  and  whenever  busi 
ness  or  old  associations  took  them  to  town  they 
helped  to  make  the  path  longer  and  broader. 

By  and  by  the  regular  wayfarers  found  it  out — 
the  peddlers,  the  colporteurs,  the  wandering  por 
trait-painters,  the  tinkers  and  clock-menders,  the 
runaway  apprentices,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  old 
time  gentry  of  the  road.  And  they  carried  the 
path  on  still  farther — down  the  river  to  Newark. 

It  is  not  wholly  to  be  told,  "The  Story  of  the 
Path."  So  many  people  had  to  do  with  its 
making  in  so  many  ways  that  no  chronicle  could 
tell  all  the  meanings  of  its  twists  and  turns  and 
straight  lines.  There  is  one  little  jog  in  its  course 
to-day,  where  it  went  around  a  tree,  the  stump  of 
which  rotted  down  into  the  ground  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  Why  do  we  walk  around  that  use 
less  bend  to-day?  Because  it  is  a  path,  and 
because  we  walk  in  the  way  of  human  nature. 

The  life  of  a  tree  may  be  a  hundred  years  or 
two  hundred  years  and  yet  be  long  life.  But  the 
days  of  the  age  of  a  man  are  threescore  and  ten, 
and  though  some  be  so  strong  that  they  come  to 
fourscore,  yet  the  strong  man  may  be  stricken 
down  in  the  flower  of  his  strength,  if  it  be  the  will 
of  the  Lord. 

When  William  Turnbull  came  to  die  he  was  but 


392  THE  STOBY  OF  A  PATH 

twoscore  years  and  five,  but  for  all  lie  was  so 
young  the  people  of  the  township  gathered  from 
far  and  near,  for  he  had  been  a  helpful  man  all  his 
days,  and  those  whom  he  had  helped  remembered 
that  he  would  help  them  no  more.  Four  men  and 
four  women  sat  up  with  the  dead,  twice  as  many 
as  the  old  custom  called  for.  One  of  the  men  was 
a  Judge,  two  had  been  Chosen  Freeholders,  and 
the  fourth  was  his  hired  man.  There  was  no 
cemetery  in  the  township,  and  his  tomb  had  been 
built  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  looking  out  on  the 
meadows  which  he  had  just  made  his  own — the 
last  purchase  of  his  life. 

There  were  two  other  pall-bearers  to  carry  him 
on  their  shoulders  to  the  place  beyond  which  no 
man  goes.  These  two,  when  they  left  the  house 
on  the  night  before  the  funeral,  walked  slowly  and 
thoughtfully  down  the  path  together.  They 
looked  over  every  step  of  the  way  with  to-mor 
row's  slow  and  toilsome  march  in  their  minds. 
When  they  came  to  the  turn  by  Pelatiah's  mound 
they  paused. 

"We  can't  never  get  him  round  that  bend," 
said  one.  "That  ain't  no  way  to  start  down  the 
hill.  Best  is  I  come  here  first  thing  in  the  morn 
ing  and  cut  a  way  through  this  bull-brier  straight 
across  the  angle,  then  we  can  see  ahead  where 
we  're  going.  Put  them  two  light  men  behind,  and 
you  and  me  at  the  head,  and  we  can  manage  it. 
My!  what  a  man  he  was,  though!  Why,  I  seen 
him  take  the  head  of  a  coffin  all  by  himself  once. ' ' 

This  man  was  a  near  neighbor  of  the  Turnbulls, 


THE  STORY  OF  A  PATH  393 

for  now  they  had  a  number  of  neighbors ;  Reuben 
Levi  Dodd  had  been  selling  small  farms  off  his  big 
farm — somehow  he  had  never  made  the  big  farm 
a  success.  There  are  many  services  of  men  to 
man  that  country  neighbors  make  little  of,  though 
to  the  dwellers  in  great  cities  they  might  seem 
strange  burdens.  At  five  o'clock  the  next  morn 
ing  Warren  Freeman,  the  pall-bearer,  went  out 
and  mowed  and  hacked  a  path  through  the  tangled 
field  from  midway  of  old  Pelatiah's  trail  down  to 
a  short-cut  made  by  the  doctor's  charity  boy,  who 
was  to-day  a  Judge.  This  Judge  came  out  of  the 
silent  house,  released  by  the  waking  hour,  from 
his  vigil  with  the  dead.  He  watched  his  fellow 
pall-bearer  at  work. 

"I  used  to  go  down  that  path  on  the  dead  run 
twenty  years  ago,"  said  he,  "when  I  was  working 
for  Dr.  Van  Wagener  and  he  used  to  send  me  up 
here  gathering  herbs." 

"You'll  go  down  it  on  the  dead  walk  to-morrow, 
Jedge,"  said  the  other,  pausing  in  his  work,  "and 
you  want  to  step  mighty  careful,  or  one  fun'l  will 
breed  another." 

Life,  death,  wedlock,  the  lingering  of  lovers,  the 
waywardness  of  childish  feet,  the  tread  of  weary 
toil,  the  slow,  swaying  walk  of  the  mother,  with 
her  babe  in  her  arms,  the  measured  steps  of  the 
bearer  of  the  dead,  the  light  march  of  youth  and 
strength  and  health — all,  all  have  helped  to  beat 
out  the  strange,  wandering  line  of  the  old  path; 
and  to  me,  who  love  to  find  and  to  tread  its  turns, 
the  current  of  their  human  life  flows  still  along 


394  THE  STORY  OP  A  PATH 

its  course,  in  the  dim  spaces  under  the  trees,  or 
out  where  the  sunshine  and  the  wind  are  at  play 
upon  the  broad,  bright  meadows. 


THE  LOST  CHILD 

THE  best  of  life  in  a  great  city  is  that  it 
breeds  a  broad  and  tolerant  catholicity  of 
spirit:  the  best  of  country  life  is  that  it 
breeds  the  spirit  of  helpful,  homely,  kindly  neigh- 
borliness.  The  suburban-dweller,  who  shares  in 
both  lives,  is  perhaps  a  little  too  ready  to  pride 
himself  in  having  learned  the  lesson  of  the  great 
metropolis,  but  the  other  and  homelier  lesson  is 
taught  so  gradually  and  so  unobtrusively,  that  he 
often  learns  it  quite  unconsciously ;  and  goes  back, 
perhaps,  to  his  old  existence  in  the  city,  only  to 
realize  that  a  certain  charm  has  gone  out  of  life 
which  he  misses  without  knowing  just  what  he 
has  lost.  He  thinks,  perhaps,  it  is  exercise  he 
lacks.  And  it  is,  indeed — the  exercise  of  certain 
gentle  sympathies,  that  thrive  as  poorly  in  the 
town's  crowded  life  as  the  country  wild-flowers 
thrive  .in  the  flower-pots  of  tenement-house 
windows. 

It  was  between  three  and  four  o'clock  of  an 
August  night — a  dark,  warm,  hazy  night,  breath 
less,  heavy  and  full  of  the  smell  of  grass  and  trees 
and  dew-moistened  earth,  when  a  man  galloped  up 
one  of  those  long  suburban  streets,  where  the 
houses  stand  at  wide  intervals,  each  behind  its 
trim  lawn,  or  old-fashioned  flower-garden, 

395 


396  THE  LOST  CHILD 

relieved,  even  in  the  darkness,  against  a  great 
rear-wood  screen  of  lofty  trees.  Up  the  drive 
way  of  one  of  these  he  turned,  his  horse's  hoof 
beats  dropping  clear  and  sharp  on  the  hard 
macadam.  He  reined  up  at  the  house  and  rapped 
a  loud  tattoo  with  the  stock  of  his  whip  on  a  pillar 
of  the  veranda. 

It  was  a  minute  or  two  before  the  noise,  loud  as 
it  was,  had  reached  the  ears  of  two  sleepers  in  the 
bedroom,  just  above  his  head.  A  much  less 
startling  sound  would  have  awakened  a  whole  city 
household;  but  slumber  in  the  country  has  a 
slumber  of  its  own:  in  summer  time  a  slumber 
born  of  night-air,  laden  with  the  odors  of  vegeta 
tion,  and  silent  except  for  the  drowsy  chirp  of 
birds  that  stir  in  vine  and  tree.  The  wife  awoke 
first,  listened  for  a  second,  and  aroused  her  hus 
band,  who  went  to  the  window.  He  raised  the 
screen  and  looked  out. 

"Who  is  it?"  he  said,  without  nervousness  or 
surprise,  though  ten  years  before  in  his  city  home 
such  a  summons  might  have  shaken  his  spirit  with 
anxious  dread. 

"I'm  Latimer,"  said  the  man  on  the  horse, 
briefly.  "That  boy  of  Penrhyn's — the  little  one 
with  the  yellow  hair — is  lost.  He  got  up  and 
slipped  out  of  the  house,  somehow,  about  an  hour 
ago,  they  think,  and  they've  found  one  of  his  play 
things  nearly  half  a  mile  down  the  Eomneytown 
Koad." 

"Where  shall  I  meet  you?"  asked  the  man  at 
the  window. 


THE  LOST  CHILD  397 

"At  the  Gun-Club  grounds  on  the  hill,"  replied 
Latimer;  "we've  sent  a  barrel  of  oil  up  there  for 
the  lanterns.  So  long,  Halford.  Is  Dirck  at 
home?" 

"Yes,"  said  Halford;  and  without  another 
word  Latimer  galloped  into  the  darkness,  and  in 
a  minute  the  sound  of  his  tattoo  was  heard  on  the 
hollow  pillars  of  the  veranda  of  the  house  next 
door. 

This  was  the  summons — a  bare  announcement 
of  an  event  without  appeal,  request,  suggestion, 
or  advice.  None  of  these  things  was  needed. 
Enough  had  been  said  between  the  two  men,  though 
they  knew  each  other  only  as  distant  neighbors. 
Each  knew  well  what  that  summons  meant,  and 
what  duty  it  involved. 

The  rat-tat  of  Latimer  *s  crop  had  hardly 
sounded  before  a  cheery  young  voice  rang  out  on 
the  air. 

"All  right,  old  man !  I  heard  you  at  Halford's. 
Go  ahead." 

It  was  Dirck 's  voice.  Dirck  had  another  name, 
a  good  long  Holland-Dutch  one,  but  everybody, 
even  the  children,  called  him  by  his  Christian 
name,  and  as  he  had  lived  to  thirty  without  getting 
one  day  older  than  eighteen,  we  will  consider  the 
other  Dutch  name  unnecessary.  Dirck  and  Hal- 
ford  were  close  friends  and  close  neighbors. 
They  were  two  men  who  had  reached  a  point  of 
perfect  community  of  tastes  and  inclinations, 
though  they  came  together  in  two  widely  different 
starting-places — though  they  were  so  little  alike 


398  THE  LOST  CHILD 

to  outward  seeming  that  they  were  known  among 
their  friends  as  "the  mismates."  Though  one 
was  forty  and  the  other  but  thirty,  each  had 
closed  a  career,  and  was  somewhat  idly  seeking  a 
new  one.  As  Dirck  expressed  it,  "We  two  fel 
lows  had  played  our  games  out,  and  were  waiting 
till  we  strike  another  that  was  high  enough  for 
our  style.  We  ain't  playing  limit  games." 

Two  very  different  games  they  had  been,  but 
neither  had  been  a  small  one.  Dirck  had  started 
in  with  a  fortune  to  "do"  the  world — the  whole 
world,  nothing  else  would  suit  him.  He  had  been 
all  over  the  globe.  He  had  lived  among  all  man 
ner  of  peoples.  He  had  ridden  everything 
ridable,  shot  everything  shootable,  climbed 
everything  climbable,  and  satisfied  himself,  as  he 
said,  that  the  world  was  too  small  for  any  par 
ticular  use.  At  the  end  of  his  travels  he  had  a 
little  of  his  fortune  left,  a  vast  amount  of  experi 
ence,  the  constitution  of  a  red  Indian,  and  a 
vocabulary  so  vast  and  so  peculiar  that  it 
stunned  and  fascinated  the  stranger.  Halford 
was  a  New  York  lawyer,  gray,  clean-shaven,  and 
sharp  of  feature.  His  "game"  had  made  him 
famous  and  might  have  made  him  wealthy,  but 
he  cared  neither  for  fame  nor  wealth.  For 
twenty  years  he  had  fought  a  host  of  great  cor 
porations  to  establish  one  single  point  of  law. 
His  antagonist  had  vainly  tried  to  bribe  him,  and 
as  vainly  to  bully  him.  He  had  been  assaulted, 
his  life  had  been  threatened,  and  altogether,  as 
he  admitted,  the  game  had  been  lively  enough  to 


THE  LOST  CHILD  399 

keep  him  interested;  but  having  once  won  the 
game  he  tired  of  that  style  of  play  altogether. 
He  picked  out  a  small  but  choice  practice  which 
permitted  him  to  work  or  be  idle  pretty  much  as 
the  fancy  took  him.  These  were  two  odd  chums 
to  meet  in  a  small  suburban  town,  there  to  lead 
quiet  and  uneventful  lives,  and  yet  they  were  the 
two  most  contented  men  in  the  place. 

Haiford  was  getting  into  his  clothes,  but  really 
with  a  speed  and  precision  which  got  the  job  over 
before  his  impetuous  next-door  neighbor  had  got 
one  leg  of  his  riding-breeches  on.  Mrs.  Haiford 
sat  up  in  bed  and  expressed  her  feeling  to  her 
husband,  who  had  never  been  known  to  express 
his. 

"Oh,  Jack,"  she  said,  "isn't  it  awful?  Would 
you  ever  have  thought  of  such  a  thing!  They 
must  have  been  awfully  careless !  Oh,  Jack,  you 
will  find  him,  won't  you?  Jack,  if  such  a  thing 
happened  to  one  of  our  children  I  should  go  wild ; 
I'll  never  get  over  it  myself  if  he  isn't  found. 
Oh,  you  don't  know  how  thankful  I  am  that  we 
didn't  lose  our  Richard  that  way!  Oh,  Jack, 
dear,  isn't  it  too  horrible  for  anything!" 

Jack  simply  responded,  with  no  trace  of  emo 
tion  in  his  voice : 

"It's  the  hell!" 

And  yet  in  those  three  words  Jack  Haiford 
expressed,  in  his  own  way,  quite  as  much  as  his 
wife  had  expressed  in  hers.  More,  even,  for 
there  was  a  grim  promise  in  his  tone  that  com 
forted  her  heart. 


400  THE  LOST  CHILD 

Mrs.  Halford's  feelings  being  expressed  and  in 
some  measure  relieved,  she  promptly  became 
practical. 

"I'll  fill  your  flask,  of  course,  dear.  Brandy, 
I  suppose  I  And  what  shall  we  women  take  up  to 
the  Gun  Club  besides  blankets  and  clean 
clothes  ?" 

Mrs.  Halford's  husband  always  thought  before 
he  spoke,  and  she  was  not  at  all  surprised  that 
he  filled  his  tobacco-pouch  before  he  answered. 
When  he  did  speak  he  knew  what  he  had  to  say. 

"First  something  to  put  in  my  pocket  for 
Dirck  and  me  to  eat.  We  can't  fool  with  coming 
home  to  breakfast.  Second,  tell  the  girls  to  send 
up  milk  to  the  Gun  Club,  and  something  for  you 
women  to  eat." 

"Oh,  I  shan't  want  anything  to  eat,"  cried 
Mrs.  Halford. 

"You  must  eat,"  said  her  husband,  simply, 
"and  you  must  make  the  rest  of  them  eat.  You 
might  do  all  right  without  it,  but  I  wouldn't  trust 
the  rest  of  them.  You  may  need  all  the  nerve 
you've  got." 

"Yes,  dear,"  said  his  wife,  submissively.  She 
had  been  with  her  husband  in  times  of  danger, 
and  she  knew  he  was  a  leader  to  be  followed. 
"I'll  have  sandwiches  and  coffee  and  tea;  I  can 
make  them  drink  tea,  anyway. ' ' 

"Third,"  went  on  Jack  Halford,  as  if  he  had 
not  been  interrupted,  "bring  my  field-glass  with 
you.  Dirck  and  I  will  range  together  along  the 
river.  If  I  put  up  a  white  handkerchief  any- 


THE  LOST  CHILD  401 

where  down  there,  you  stay  where  you  are  and  we 
will  come  to  you.  If  I  put  up  this  red  one,  come 
right  down  with  blankets  and  brandy  in  the  first 
carriage  you  can  get  hold  of.  Get  on  the  north 
edge  of  the  hill  and  you  can  keep  a  line  on  us 
almost  anywhere." 

"Couldn't  you  give  us  some  signal,  dear,  to  tell 
us  if— if— if  it's  all  right?" 

"If  it  was  all  wrong,"  replied  the  husband, 
"you  wouldn't  want  the  mother  to  learn  it  that 
way.  Ill  signal  to  you  privately,  however.  If 
it's  all  right,  I'll  wave  the  handkerchief;  if  I 
move  it  up  and  down,  you  '11  understand. ' ' 

Two  minutes  later  he  bade  her  good-by  at  the 
door. 

"Now  remember,"  he  said,  "white  means  wait, 
red  means  ride." 

And  having  delivered  himself  of  this  simple 
mnemonic  device,  he  passed  out  into  the 
darkness. 

At  the  next  gate  he  met  Dirck  and  the  two 
swung  into  step  together,  and  walked  up  the 
street  with  the  steady,  stretching  tread  of  men 
accustomed  to  walking  long  distances.  They 
said  *  *  Hello ! "  as  they  met,  and  their  further  con 
versation  was  brief. 

"Eiver,"  said  Halford;  "what  do  you  think?" 

"Eiver,  sure,"  said  the  other;  "a  lot  of  those 
younger  boys  have*  been  taking  the  youngsters 
down  there  lately.  I  saw  that  kid  down  there 
last  week,  and  I'll  bet  a  dollar  his  mother  would 
swear  that  he'd  never  seen  the  river." 


402  THE  LOST  CHILD 

"Then  we  won't  say  anything  about  it  to  her," 
said  Halford,  and  they  reached  along  in  silence. 

Before  them,  when  they  came  to  the  end  of  the 
road,  rose  a  hill  with  a  broad  plateau  on  its 
stomach.  Here  through  the  dull  haze  of  the 
morning  they  saw  smoky-orange  lights  beginning 
to  flicker  uncertainly  as  the  wind  that  heralds  the 
sunrise  came  fitfully  up.  The  soft  wet  grass 
under  their  feet  was  flecked  with  little  grayish- 
silver  cobwebs,  and  here  and  there  they  heard 
the  morning  chirp  of  ground-nesting  birds.  As 
they  went  farther  up  the  hill  a  hum  of  voices 
came  from  above;  the  voices  of  people,  men  and 
women,  mingled  and  consonant  like  the  voices  of 
the  birds,  but  with  a  certain  tone  of  trouble  and 
expectancy.  Every  now  and  then  one  individual 
voice  or  another  would  dominate  the  general 
murmur,  and  would  be  followed  by  a  quick 
flutter  of  sound  denoting  acquiescence  or  dis 
agreement.  From  this  they  knew  that  most  of 
their  neighbors  had  arrived  before  them,  having 
been  summoned  earlier  in  the  journey  of  the  mes 
sengers  sent  out  from  the  distant  home  of  the  lost 
child. 

On  the  crown  of  the  hill  stood  a  curious  struc 
ture,  actually  small,  but  looming  large  in  the 
grayness.  The  main  body  of  the  building  was 
elevated  upon  posts,  and  was  smaller  at  the 
bottom  than  where  the  spreading  walls  met  the 
peaked  roof.  This  roof  spread  out  on  both  sides 
into  broad  verandas,  and  under  these  two  wing- 
like  shelters  some  three  or  four  score  of  people 


THE  LOST  CHILD  403 

were  clustered  in  little  groups.  Lanterns  and 
hand-lamps  dimly  lit  up  faces  that  showed 
strange  in  the  unfamiliar  illumination.  There 
were  women  with  shawls  over  their  shoulders  and 
women  with  shawls  over  their  heads.  Some  of  the 
men  were  in  their  shirt-sleeves,  some  wore  shoot 
ing-coats,  and  a  few  had  overcoats,  though  the 
night  wras  warm.  But  no  stranger  arriving  on  the 
scene  could  have  taken  it  for  a  promiscuous  or 
accidental  assemblage.  There  was  a  movement  in 
unison,  a  sympathetic  stir  throughout  the  little 
crowd  that  created  a  common  interest  and  a  com 
mon  purpose.  The  arrival  of  the  two  men  was 
hailed  with  that  curious  sound  with  which  such  a 
gathering  greets  a  desired  and  attended  acces 
sion — not  quite  the  sigh  of  relief,  .hut  the  quick, 
nervous  expulsion  of  the  breath  that  tallies  the 
coming  of  the  expected.  These  were  two  of  the 
men  to  be  counted  on,  and  they  were  there. 

Every  little  community  such  as  this  knows  its 
leaders,  and  now  that  their  number  was  complete, 
the  women  drew  together  by  themselves  save  for 
two  or  three  who  clearly  took  equal  direction  with 
the  men;  and  a  dozen  in  all,  perhaps,  gathered  in 
a  rough  circle  to  discuss  the  organization  of  the 
search. 

It  was  a  brief  discussion.  A  majority  of  the 
members  of  the  group  had  formed  decided  opinions 
as  to  the  course  taken  by  the  wandering  child,  and 
thus  a  division  into  sub-groups  came  about  at 
once.  This  left  various  stretchings  of  territory 
uncovered,  and  these  were  assigned  to  those  of  the 


404  THE  LOST  CHILD 

more  decided  minority  who  were  best  acquainted 
with  the  particular  localities.  When  the  division 
of  labor  was  completed,  the  men  had  arranged  to 
start  out  in  such  directions  as  would  enable  them 
to  range  and  view  the  whole  countryside  for  the 
extreme  distance  of  radius  to  which  it  was  sup 
posed  the  boy  could  possibly  have  travelled.  The 
assignment  of  Halford  and  Dirck  to  the  river 
course  was  prompt,  for  it  was  known  that  they 
habitually  hunted  and  fished  along  that  line.  The 
father  of  the  boy,  who  stood  by,  was  reminded  of 
this  fact,  for  a  curious  and  doubtful  look  came  into 
his  face  when  he  heard  two  of  the  most  active  and 
energetic  men  in  the  town  set  aside  to  search  a 
region  where  he  had  no  idea  that  his  boy  could 
have  strayed.  Some  excuse  was  given  also  for  the 
detailing  of  two  other  men  of  equal  ability  to  take 
the  range  immediately  above  the  river  bank,  and 
within  hailing  distance  of  those  in  the  marshes  by 
the  shore.  Had  his  mind  not  been  in  the  daze  of 
mortal  grief  and  perplexity,  he  would  have 
grasped  the  sinister  significance  of  this  precau 
tion  ;  but  he  accepted  it  in  dull  and  hopeless  confi 
dence.  When  after  they  had  set  forth  he  told  his 
wife  of  the  arrangements  made,  and  she  heard  the 
names  of  the  four  men  who  had  been  appointed  to 
work  near  the  riverside,  she  pulled  the  faded  old 
Paisley  shawl  (that  the  child's  nurse  had 
wrapped  about  her)  across  her  swollen  eyes,  and 
moaned,  "The  river,  the  river — oh,  my  boy,  my 
boy!" 

Perhaps  the  men  heard  her,  for  being  all  in  place 


THE  LOST  CHILD  405 

to  take  their  several  directions,  they  made  a  cer 
tain  broken  start  and  were  off  into  the  darkness  at 
the  base  of  the  hill,  before  the  two  or  three  of  their 
sex  who  were  left  in  charge  of  the  women  had 
fairly  given  the  word.  The  tramp  of  men's  feet 
and  horses'  hoofs  died  down  into  the  shadowy 
distance.  The  women  went  inside  the  spacious  old 
corn-crib  that  had  been  turned  into  a  gun-club 
shooting-box,  and  there  the  mother  laid  her  face  on 
the  breast  of  her  best  friend,  and  clung  to  her 
without  a  sound,  only  shuddering  once  and  again, 
and  holding  her  with  a  convulsive  grip.  The  other 
women  moved  around,  and  busied  themselves  with 
little  offices,  like  the  making  of  tea  and  the  trim 
ming  of  lamps,  and  talked  among  each  other  in  a 
quiet  way  with  the  odd  little  upward  inflections 
with  which  women  simulate  cheerfulness  and  hope, 
telling  tales  of  children  who  had  been  lost  and  had 
been  found  again  all  safe  and  unscathed,  and 
praising  the  sagacity  and  persistence  of  certain 
of  the  men  engaged  in  the  search.  Mr.  Latimer, 
they  said,  was  almost  like  a  detective,  he  had  such 
an  instinct  for  finding  things  and  people.  Mr. 
Brown  knew  every  field  and  hollow  on  the  Brook- 
field  Eoad.  Mr.  MacDonald  could  see  just  as  well 
in  the  darkness  as  in  the  daytime ;  and  all  the  talk 
that  reached  the  mother's  ears  was  of  this  man's 
skill  of  woodcraft,  of  that  man 's  knowledge  of  the 
country,  or  of  another's  unfailing  cleverness  or 
tirelessness. 

Outside,  the  two  or  three  men  in  charge  stood  by 
the  father  in  their  own  way.    It  had  been  agreed 


406  THE  LOST  CHILD 

that  he  should  wait  at  the  hilltop  to  learn  if  a  trail 
had  been  found.  He  was  a  good  fellow,  but  not 
helpful  or  capable;  and  it  was  their  work  to 
11  jolly"  him,  as  they  called  it;  to  keep  his  hope  up 
with  cheering  suggestions,  and  with  occasional 
judicious  doses  of  whiskey  from  their  flasks.  For 
themselves,  they  did  not  drink ;  though  their  voices 
were  low  and  steady  they  were  more  nervous  than 
the  poor  sufferer  they  guarded,  numbed  and  child 
ish  in  his  awful  grief  and  apprehension.  They 
were  waiting  for  the  sounds  of  the  beginning  of  the 
search  far  below,  and  presently  these  sounds 
came,  or  rather  one  sound,  a  hollow  noise,  change 
ful,  uneven,  yet  of  cruel  monotony.  It  was  a  cry 
of  <  '  Willy !  Willy !  Willy ! ' '  rising  out  of  that  gray- 
black  depth,  a  cry  of  many  voices,  a  cry  that  came 
from  far  and  near,  a  cry  at  which  the  women 
huddled  closer  together  and  pressed  each  other's 
hands,  and  looked  speechless  love  and  pity  at  the 
woman  who  lay  upon  her  best  friend's  breast, 
clutching  it  tighter  and  tighter.  Of  the  men  out 
side,  the  father  leaned  forward  and  clutched  the 
arm  of  his  chair.  The  others  saw  the  great  drops 
of  sweat  roll  from  his  brow,  and  they  turned  their 
faces  away  from  him  and  swore  inaudibly. 

Then,  as  the  deep  below  began  to  be  alive  with 
a  faint  dim  light  reflected  from  the  half  awakened 
heaven,  the  voices  died  away  in  the  distance,  and 
in  their  place  the  leaves  of  the  great  trees  rustled 

and  the  birds  twittered  to  the  coming  morn. 
•        ••••••• 

The  day  broke  with  the  dull  red  that  prophesies 


THE  LOST  CHILD  407 

heat  As  the  hours  wore  on  the  prophecy  was 
fulfilled.  The  moisture  of  the  dew  and  the  river 
mist  rose  toward  the  hot  sky  and  vanished,  but  the 
dry  haze  remained  and  the  low  sun  shone  through 
it  with  a  peculiar  diffusion  of  coppery  light.  Even 
when  it  reached  the  zenith,  the  warm,  faintly  yel 
low  dimness  still  rose  high  above  the  horizon, 
throwing  its  soft  spell  upon  all  objects  far  or  near, 
and  melting  through  the  dim  blue  on  the  dis 
tant  hilltop  into  the  hot  azure  of  the  great  dome 
above. 

For  an  hour  the  watchers  on  the  hill  remained 
undisturbed,  talking  in  undertones.  For  the  most 
part,  they  speculated  on  the  significance  of  the 
faint  sounds  that  came  up  from  below.  Some 
times  they  could  trace  the  crash  of  a  horse  through 
dry  underbrush;  sometimes  a  tumultuous  clamor 
of  commanding  voices  would  tell  them  that  a  flat 
boat  was  being  worked  across  a  broad  creek  or  a 
pond ;  sometimes  a  hardly  audible  whirr,  and  the 
metallic  clinking  of  a  bicycle  bell  would  tell  them 
that  the  wheelmen  were  speeding  on  the  search. 
But  for  the  best  part  of  the  time  only  nature's 
harmony  of  sounds  came  up  through  the  ever- 
lightening  gloom. 

But  with  the  first  of  daylight  came  the  neighbors 
who  had  not  been  summoned,  and  they,  of  course, 
came  running.  It  was  also  noticeable  of  this  con 
tingent  that  their  attire  was  somewhat  studied,  and 
showed  more  or  less  elaborate  preparation  for 
starting  on  the  already  started  hunt.  Noticeable 
also  it  was,  that  after  much  sagacious  questioning 


408  THE  LOST  CHILD 

and  profoundly  wise  discussion,  the  most  of  the 
newcomers  either  hung  about  peering  out  into  the 
dawn  and  making  startling  discoveries  at  various 
points,  or  else  went  back  to  their  houses  to  get 
bicycles,  or  horses,  or  forgotten  suspenders.  The 
little  world  of  a  suburban  town  sorts  itself  out 
pretty  quickly  and  pretty  surely.  There  are  the 
men  who  do  and  the  men  who  don't ;  and  very  few 
of  the  men  who  did,  in  that  particular  town,  were 
in  bed  half  an  hour  after  the  loss  of  that  child  was 
known/ 

But,  after  all,  the  late  arrivals  were  useful  in 
their  way,  and  their  wives,  who  came  along  later, 
were  still  more  useful.  The  men  were  fertile  in 
suggestions  for  tempting  and  practicable  break 
fasts;  and  the  women  actually  brought  the  food 
along;  and  by  the  time  that  the  world  was  well 
alight,  the  early  risers  were  bustling  about  and 
serving  coffee  and  tea,  and  biscuits  and  fruit,  and 
keeping  up  that  semblance  of  activity  and  employ 
ment  that  alone  can  carry  poor  humanity  through 
long  periods  of  suspense  and  anxiety.  And  the 
first  on  the  field  were  the  last  to  eat  and  the  least 
critical  of  their  fare. 

It  was  eight  o'clock  when  the  first  party  of 
searchers  returned  to  the  hill.  There  were  eight 
of  them.  They  stopped  a  little  below  the  crib  and 
beckoned  to  Penrhyn  to  come  down  to  them.  He 
went,  white-faced  and  a  little  unsteady  on  his  feet ; 
his  guardians  followed  him  and  joined  with  the 
group  in  a  busy  serious  talk  that  lasted  perhaps 
five  minutes — but  vastly  longer  to  the  women  who 


THE  LOST  CHILD  409 

watched  them  from  above.  Then  Penrhyn  and 
two  men  went  hastily  down  the  hill,  and  the  others 
came  up  to  the  crib  and  eagerly  accepted  the  offer 
of  a  hasty  breakfast. 

They  had  little  to  tell,  and  that  little  only  served 
to  deepen  the  doubt  and  trouble  of  the  hour.  Of 
all  the  complications  of  unkind  chance  the 
searchers  had  to  face  the  worst  and  the  most 
puzzling.  As  in  many  towns  of  old  settlement  a 
road  ran  around  the  town,  roughly  circumscribing 
it,  much  as  the  boulevards  of  Paris  anciently  cir 
cumscribed  the  old  fortifications  of  that  city.  It 
was  little  more  than  a  haphazard  connection  of 
roads,  lanes,  and  avenues,  each  one  of  which  had 
come  into  existence  to  serve  some  particular  end, 
and  the  connection  had  ended  in  forming  a  circuit 
that  practically  defined  the  town  limits.  It  had 
been  made  certain  that  the  boy  had  wandered  this 
whole  round,  and  that  he  had  not  left  it  by  any  one 
of  the  converging  roads  which  he  must  have 
crossed.  Nor  could  the  direction  of  his  wandering 
be  ascertained.  The  hard,  dry  macadam  road, 
washed  clean  by  a  recent  rainfall,  showed  no  trace 
of  his  light,  infantile  footprints.  But  sure  it  was 
that  he  had  been  on  the  road  not  one  hour,  but  two 
or  three  at  least,  and  that  he  had  started  out  with 
an  armful  of  his  tiny  belongings.  Here  they  had 
found  his  small  pocket-handkerchief,  there  a  gray 
giraffe  from  his  Noah's  ark;  in  another  place  a 
noseless  doll  that  had  descended  to  him  from  his 
eldest  sister;  then  a  top  had  been  found — a  top 
that  he  could  not  have  spun  for  years  to  come. 


410  THE  LOST  CHILD 

Would  the  years  ever  come  when  that  lost  boy 
should  spin  tops? 

There  were  other  little  signs  which  attested  his 
passage  around  the  circle — freshly  broken  stalks 
of  milkweed,  shreds  of  his  brightly  figured  cotton 
dress  on  the  thorns  of  the  wayside  blackberries, 
and  even  in  one  place  the  print  of  a  muddy  and 
bloody  little  hand  on  a  white  gate-post. 

There  is  no  search  more  difficult  than  a  search 
for  a  lost  child  five  or  six  years  of  age.  "We  are 
apt  to  think  of  these  wee  ones  as  feeble  creatures, 
and  we  forget  that  their  physical  strength  is  pro 
portionally  much  greater  than  that  of  grown-up 
people.  We  forget  also  that  the  child  has  not 
learned  to  attribute  sensations  of  physical  dis 
comfort  to  their  proper  sources.  The  child  knows 
that  it  suffers,  but  it  does  not  know  why.  It  is 
conscious  of  a  something  wrong,  but  the  little 
brain  is  often  unable  to  tell  whether  that  some 
thing  be  weariness  or  hunger.  If  the  wandering 
spirit  be  upon  it,  it  wanders  to  the  last  limit  of 
physical  power,  and  it  is  surprising  indeed  to  find 
how  long  it  is  before  that  limit  is  reached.  A 
healthy,  muscular  infant  of  this  age  has  been 
known  to  walk  nearly  eight  or  ten  miles  before 
becoming  utterly  exhausted.  And  when  exhaus 
tion  comes,  and  the  tiny  form  falls  in  its  tracks, 
how  small  an  object  it  is  to  detect  in  the  great 
world  of  outdoors !  A  little  bundle  of  dusty  gar 
ments  in  a  ditch,  in  a  wayside  hollow,  in  tall  grass, 
or  among  the  tufts  and  hummocks  of  a  marsh — 
how  easy  it  is  for  so  inconspicuous  an  object  to 


THE  LOST  CHILD  411 

escape  the  eye  of  the  most  zealous  searcher!  A 
young  animal  lost  cries  incessantly;  the  lost  child 
cries  out  his  pitiful  little  cry,  finds  itself  lifted  to 
no  tender  bosom,  soothed  by  no  gentle  voice,  and 
in  the  end  wanders  and  suffers  in  helpless,  hope 
less  silence. 

As  the  morning  wore  on  Dirck  and  Half  ord  beat 
the  swampy  lands  of  the  riverside  with  a  thor 
oughness  that  showed  their  understanding  of  the 
difficulty  of  their  work,  and  their  conviction,  that 
the  child  had  taken  that  direction.  This  convic 
tion  deepened  with  every  hour,  for  the  rest  of  the 
countryside  was  fairly  open  and  well  populated, 
and  there  the  search  should  have  been,  for  such  a 
search,  comparatively  easy.  Yet  the  sun  climbed 
higher  and  higher  in  the  sky,  and  no  sound  of  guns 
fired  in  glad  signal  reached  their  ears.  Hither 
and  thither  they  went  through  the  hot  lowlands, 
meeting  and  parting  again,  with  appointments  to 
come  together  in  spots  known  to  them  both,  or 
separating  without  a  word,  each  knowing  well 
where  their  courses  would  bring  them  together. 
From  time  to  time  they  caught  glimpses  of  their 
companions  on  the  hills  above,  who,  from  their 
height,  could  see  the  place  of  meeting  on  the  still 
higher  hill,  and  each  time  they  signalled  the  news 
and  got  back  the  despairing  sign  that  meant 
"None  yet!" 

News  enough  there  was,  but  not  the  news.  Mrs. 
Penrhyn  still  stayed,  for  her  own  house  was  so 
situated  that  the  child  could  not  possibly  return  to 
it,  if  he  had  taken  the  direction  that  now  seemed 


412  THE  LOST  CHILD 

certain,  without  passing  through  the  crowd  of 
searchers,  and  intelligence  of  his  discovery  must 
reach  her  soonest  at  that  point.  Perhaps  there 
was  another  reason,  too.  Perhaps  she  could  not 
bear  to  return  to  that  silent  house,  where  every 
room  held  some  reminder  of  her  loss.  Certainly 
she  remained  at  the  Club,  and  perhaps  she  got 
some  unreasoning  comfort  out  of  the  rumors  and 
reports  that  came  to  that  spot  from  every  side.  It 
was  but  the  idle  talk  that  springs  up  and  flies  about 
on  such  occasions,  but  now  and  then  it  served  as  a 
straw  for  her  drowning  hope  to  clutch  at.  Word 
would  come  of  a  farmer  who  had  seen  a  strange 
child  in  his  neighbor's  wagon.  Then  would  come 
a  story  of  an  innkeeper  who  had  driven  into  town 
to  ask  if  anybody  had  lost  a  boy.  Then  somebody 
would  bring  a  report  at  third  or  fourth  hand  of  a 
child  rescued  alive  from  the  river.  Of  course 
story  after  story,  report  after  report,  came  to 
nothing.  The  child  seen  in  the  wagon  was  a  girl 
of  fourteen.  The  innkeeper  had  come  to  town  to 
ask  about  the  lost  child,  but  it  was  only  because  he 
had  heard  the  report  and  was  curious.  A  child 
indeed  had  been  rescued  from  the  river,  but  the 
story  was  a  week  old.  And  so  it  went,  and  the  hot 
sun  rose  to  its  zenith  and  declined,  and  the  coppery 
haze  grew  dim,  and  the  shadows  lengthened,  and 
the  late  afternoon  was  come  with  its  awful  threat 
of  impending  night. 

Dirck  and  Half ord,  down  in  the  riverside  marsh, 
saw  that  dreaded  change  fall  upon  the  landscape, 
and  they  paused  in  their  search  and  looked  at  one 


THE  LOST  CHILD  413 

another  silently.  They  had  been  ceaselessly  at 
work  all  day,  and  the  work  had  left  its  marks  on 
them.  Their  faces  were  burnt  to  a  fiery  red,  they 
were  torn  and  scratched  in  the  brambles,  their 
clothes  were  soaked  in  mud  and  water  to  the  waist, 
and  they  had  been  bitten  and  stung  by  insects  until 
they  looked  as  though  some  strange  fever  had 
broken  out  on  them. 

They  had  just  met  after  a  long  beat,  each  having 
described  the  half  of  a  circle  around  a  piece  of 
open  water,  and  had  sunk  down  in  utter  weariness 
on  a  little  patch  of  dry  ground,  and  for  a  minute 
looked  at  each  other  in  silence.  Then  the  younger 
man  spoke. 

"Hal,"  he  said,  "he  never  came  this  far." 

By  way  of  answer  the  other  drew  from  his 
pocket  a  child's  shoe,  worn  and  wet,  and  held  it  up. 

"Where  did  you  find  it?"  asked  Dirck. 

"Eight  over  there,"  said  Halford,  "near  that 
old  wagon-trail. ' ' 

Dirck  looked  at  him  with  a  question  in  his 
eyes,  which  found  its  answer  in  the  grave  incli 
nation  of  the  elder's  head.  Then  Dirck  shook  his 
head  and  whistled — one  long,  low,  significant 
whistle. 

1 '  Well, ' '  he  said, ' «  I  thought  so.    Any  trail  1 ' ' 

"Not  the  least,"  replied  Halford.  "There's  a 
strip  of  thick  salt  grass  there,  over  two  yards  wide, 
and  I  found  the  shoe  right  in  the  middle  of  it.  It 
was  lying  on  its  side  when  I  found  it,  not  caught  in 
the  grass." 

"Then  they  were   carrying  him,   sure,"   said 


414  THE  LOST  CHILD 

Dirck,  decisively.     "Now  then,  the  question  is, 
which  way." 

The  two  men  went  over  to  the  abandoned  road 
way,  a  mere  trail  of  ruts,  where,  in  years  before, 
ox-teams  had  hauled  salt  hay.  Up  and  down  the 
long  strip  of  narrow  grass  that  bordered  it,  they 
went  backward  and  forward,  hunting  for  traces  of 
men's  feet,  for  they  knew  by  this  time,  almost 
beyond  doubt,  that  the  child  was  in  the  hands  of 
tramps.  The  "tramp-hole"  is  an  institution  in 
all  suburban  regions  which  are  bordered  by 
stretches  of  wild  and  unfrequented  country. 
These  tramp-holes  or  camps  are  the  headquarters 
of  bands  of  wanderers  who  come  year  after  year 
to  dwell  sometimes  for  a  week,  sometimes  for 
months.  The  same  spot  is  always  occupied,  and 
there  seems  to  be  an  understanding  among  all  the 
bands  that  the  original  territory  shall  not  be 
exceeded.  The  tramps  who  establish  these 
"holes"  are  invariably  professionals,  and  never 
casual  vagabonds ;  and  apparently  they  make  it  a 
point  of  honor  to  conduct  themselves  with  a  cer 
tain  propriety  while  they  are  in  camp.  Curiously 
enough,  too,  they  seem  to  come  to  the  tramp-hole, 
mainly  for  the  purpose  of  doing  what  it  is  sup 
posed  that  a  tramp  never  does,  namely:  washing 
themselves  and  their  clothes.  I  have  seen  on  a 
chill  November  day,  in  one  of  these  places,  half  a 
dozen  men,  naked  to  the  waist,  scrubbing  them 
selves,  or  drying  their  wet  shirts  before  the  fire.  I 
have  always  found  them  perfectly  peaceable,  and  I 
have  never  known  them  to  accost  lonely  passers-by, 


THE  LOST  CHILD  415 

or  women  or  children.  If  a  shooting  or  fishing 
party  comes  along,  however,  large  enough  to  put 
any  accusation  of  terrorism  out  of  the  question,  it 
is  not  uncommon  for  the  *  '  hoboes ?  J  to  make  a  polite 
suggestion  that  the  poor  man  would  be  the  better 
for  his  beer ;  and  so  well  is  the  reputation  of  these 
queer  camps  established  that  the  applicant  gen 
erally  receives  such  a  collection  of  five-cent  pieces 
as  will  enable  him  to  get  a  few  quarts  for  himself 
and  his  companions. 

Still,  in  spite  of  the  mysterious  system  of  gov 
ernment  that  sways  these  banded  wanderers  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  it  happens  occasionally  that  the 
tramp  of  uncontrollable  instincts  finds  his  way  into 
the  tramp-hole,  and  there,  if  his  companions  are 
not  numerous  or  strong  enough  to  withstand  him, 
commits  some  outrage  that  excites  popular  indig 
nation  and  leads  to  the  utter  abolition  of  one  of  the 
few  poor  outdoor  homes  that  the  tramp  can  call  his 
own,  by  the  grace  and  indulgence  of  the  world  of 
workers.  That  such  a  thing  had  happened  now 
the  two  searchers  for  the  lost  child  feared  with  an 
unspeakable  fear. 

Dirck  straightened  himself  up  after  a  careful 
inspection  of  the  strip  of  salt  grass  turf,  and  look 
ing  up  at  the  ridge,  blew  a  loud,  shrill  whistle  on 
his  two  fingers.  There  was  no  answer.  They  had 
gone  a  full  mile  beyond  call  of  their  followers. 

"I'll  tell  you  what,  old  man,"  said  Dirck,  with 
the  light  of  battle  coming  into  his  young  eyes, 
" we'll  do  this  thing  ourselves."  His  senior 
smiled,  but  even  as  he  smiled  he  knit  his  brows. 


416  THE  LOST  CHILD 

"I'll  go  yon,  my  boy,"  lie  said,  "so  far  as  to 
look  them  up  at  the  canal-boats.  If  they  are  not 
there  we've  got  to  go  back  and  start  the  rest  off. 
It  may  be  a  question  of  horses,  and  it  may  be  a 
question  of  telegraphing." 

"Well,  let's  have  one  go  at  them,  anyway,"  said 
Dirck.  He  was  no  less  tender-hearted  than  his 
companion ;  he  wanted  to  find  the  child,  but  also  he 
wanted,  being  young  and  strong  and  full  of  fight, 
to  hunt  tramps. 


There  were  three  tramp-holes  by  the  river 
side,  but  two  were  sheltered  hollows  used  only  in 
the  winter-time.  The  third  was  a  collection  of 
abandoned  canal-boats  on  the  muddy  strand  of  the 
river.  Most  of  them  were  hopeless  wrecks;  in 
three  or  four  a  few  patches  of  deck  remained, 
enough  to  afford  lodgment  and  shelter  to  the  reck 
less  wayfarers  who  made  nothing  of  sleeping  close 
to  the  polluted  waters  that  permeated  the  rotten 
hulks  with  foul  stains  and  fouler  smells. 

From  the  largest  of  these  long,  clumsy  carcasses 
of  boats  came  a  sound  of  muffled  laughter.  The 
two  searchers  crept  softly  up,  climbed  noiselessly 
to  the  deck  and  looked  down  the  hatchway.  The 
low,  red  sun  poured  in  through  a  window  below 
them,  leaving  them  in  shadow  and  making  a  pic 
ture  in  red  light  and  black  shades  of  the  strange 
group  below. 

Surrounded  by  ten  tramps;  ten  dirty,  uncouth, 
unshaven  men  of  the  road,  sat  the  little  Penrhyn 


THE  LOST  CHILD  417 

boy,  his  little  night-shirt  much  travel- stained  and 
torn,  his  fat  legs  scratched  and  bruised,  his  soiled 
cheeks  showing  the  traces  of  tears,  his  lips  dyed 
with  the  juices  of  the  berries  he  had  eaten  on  his 
way,  but  happy,  happy,  happy — happier  perhaps 
than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life  before ;  for  in  his 
hand  he  held  a  clay  pipe  which  he  made  persistent 
efforts  to  smoke,  while  one  of  the  men,  a  big  black- 
bearded  animal  who  wore  three  coats,  one  on  top 
of  the  other,  gently  withdrew  it  from  his  lips  each 
time  that  the  smoke  grew  dangerously  thick.  And 
the  whole  ten  of  them,  sitting  around  him  in  their 
rags  and  dirt,  cheered  him  and  petted  him  and 
praised  him,  even  as  no  polite  assemblage  had  ever 
worshipped  him  before.  No  food,  no  drink  could 
have  been  so  acceptable  to  that  delicately  nurtured 
child  of  the  house  of  Penrhyn  as  the  rough  admira 
tion  of  those  ten  tramps.  Whatever  terrors, 
sufferings,  or  privations  he  had  been  through 
were  all  forgotten,  and  he  crowed  and  shrieked 
with  hysterical  laughter.  And  when  his  two 
rescuers  dropped  down  into  the  hole,  instead 
of  welcoming  them  with  joy,  he  grabbed  one  of  the 
collars  of  the  big  brute  with  the  three  coats  and 
wept  in  dire  disappointment  and  affright. 

"Fore  God,  boss!"  said  the  spokesman  of  the 
gang,  the  sweat  standing  out  on  his  brow,  "we 
didn't  mean  him  no  harm,  and  we  wouldn't  have 
done  him  no  harm  neither.  We  found  de  little 
blokey  over  der  in  the  ma'sh  yonder,  and  we  tuk 
him  in  and  fed  him  de  best  we  could.  We  was 
goin'  to  take  him  up  to  the  man  what  keeps  the 


418  THE  LOST  CHILD 

gin-mill  up  the  river  there,  for  we  hadn't  no 
knowledge  of  where  he  come  from,  and  we  didn't 
want  to  get  none  of  you  folks  down  on  us.  I  know 
we  oughter  have  took  him  up  two  hours  ago,  hut 
he  was  foolin'  that  funny-like  that  we  all  got  kinder 
stuck  on  it,  see,  and  we  kinder  didn  't  want  to  shake 
him.  That's  all  there  was  to  it,  hoss.  God  in 
heaven  be  my  judge,  I  ain't  lyin',  and  that's  the 
truth!" 

The  faces  of  the  ten  tramps  could  not  turn 
white,  but  they  did  show  an  ashen  fear  under  their 
eyes — a  deadly  fear  of  the  two  men  for  whom  any 
one  of  them  would  have  been  more  than  a  match, 
but  who  represented  the  world  from  which  they 
were  outcasts,  the  world  of  Home,  of  whose  most 
precious  sweetness  they  had  stolen  an  hour's 
enjoyment — the  world  so  strong  and  terrible  to 
avenge  a  wrong  to  its  best  beloved. 

Then  the  silence  was  broken  by  the  voice  of  the 
child,  wailing  piteously : 

"I  don't  want  to  be  tooken  away  from  the 
raggedty  gentlemen ! ' ' 

Dirck  still  looked  suspicious  as  he  took  the 
weeping  child,  but  Half  ord  smiled  grimly,  thought 
fully  and  sadly,  as  he  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket 
and  said:  "I  guess  it's  all  right,  boys,  but  I  think 
you'd  better  get  away  for  the  present.  Take  this 
and  get  over  the  river  and  out  of  the  county.  The 
people  have  been  searching  for  this  baby  all  day, 
and  I  don't  know  whether  they'll  listen  to  my 
friend  and  me." 


THE  LOST  CHILD  419 

The  level  red  light  had  left  the  valleys  and  low 
places,  and  lit  alone  the  hilltop  where  the  mother 
was  watching,  when  a  great  shout  came  out  of  the 
darkness,  spreading  from  voice  to  voice  through 
the  great  expanse  below,  and  echoed  wildly  from 
above,  thrilling  men's  blood  and  making  hearts 
stand  still;  and  as  it  rose  and  swelled  and  grew 
toward  her  out  of  the  darkness,  the  mother  knew 
that  her  lost  child  was  found. 


A  LETTER  TO  TOWN 

FEKNSEED  STATION, 

ATLANTIS  Co.,  NEW 

February  30, 189—. 

MY  DEAR  MODESTUS:— You  write  me 
that  circumstances  have  decided  you  to 
move  your  household  from  New  York  to 
some  inexpensively  pleasant  town,  village  or  ham 
let  in  the  immediate  neighborhood,  and  you  ask 
me  the  old,  old  innocent  question : 

" Shall  I  like  suburban  life?" 

This  question  I  can  answer  most  frankly  and 
positively : 

"No,  certainly  not.  You  will  not  like  it  at 
all." 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  liking  a  country  life — 
for  I  take  it  that  you  mean  to  remove  to  the  real 
suburban  countryside,  and  not  to  one  of  those 
abominable  and  abhorrent  deserts  of  paved  streets 
laid  out  at  right  angles,  and  all  supplied  with 
sewers  and  electric  light  wires  and  water-mains 
before  the  first  lonely  house  escapes  from  the 
house-pattern  books  to  tempt  the  city  dweller  out 
to  that  dreary,  soulless  waste  which  has  all  the 
modern  improvements  and  not  one  tree.  I  take  it, 
I  say,  that  you  are  going  to  no  such  cheap  back- 
extension  of  a  great  city,  but  that  you  are  really 

420 


A  LETTER  TO  TOWN  421 

going  among  the  trees  and  water-coursec,  severing 
all  ties  with  the  town,  save  the  railway 's  glittering 
lines  of  steel — or,  since  I  have  thought  of  it  I 
might  as  well  say  the  railway  ties. 

If  that  is  what  your  intent  is,  and  you  carry  it 
out  firmly,  you  are  going  to  a  life  which  you  can 
never  like,  but  which  you  may  learn  to  love. 

How  should  it  be  possible  that  you  should  enjoy 
taking  up  a  new  life,  with  new  surroundings,  new 
anxieties,  new  responsibilities,  new  duties,  new  di 
versions,  new  social  connections — new  conditions 
of  every  kind — after  living  half  a  lifetime  in  New 
York?  It  is  true  that,  being  a  born  New  Yorker, 
you  know  very  little  indeed  of  the  great  city  you 
live  in.  You  know  the  narrow  path  you  tread, 
coming  and  going,  from  your  house  to  your  office, 
and  from  your  office  to  your  house.  It  follows,  as 
closely  as  it  may,  the  line  of  Broadway  and  Fifth 
Avenue.  The  elevated  railroads  bound  it  down 
town  ;  and  uptown  fashion  has  drawn  a  line  a  few 
hundred  yards  on  either  side,  which  you  have  only 
to  cross,  to  east  or  to  west,  to  find  a  strange  exposi 
tion  of  nearsightedness  come  upon  your  friends. 
Here  and  there  you  do,  perhaps,  know  some  little 
by-path  that  leads  to  a  club  or  a  restaurant,  or  to  a 
place  of  amusement.  After  a  number  of  books 
have  been  written  at  you,  you  have  ventured  timor 
ously  and  feebly  into  such  unknown  lands  as 
Greenwich  Village ;  or  that  poor,  shabby,  elbowing 
stretch  of  territory  that  used  to  be  interesting,  in  a 
simple  way,  when  it  was  called  the  French  Quarter. 
It  is  now  supposed  to  be  the  Bohemian  Quarter, 


422  A  LETTER  TO  TOWN 

and  rising  young  artists  invite  parties  of  society 
ladies  to  go  down  to  its  table  d'hote  restaurants, 
and  see  the  desperate  young  men  of  the  bachelor- 
apartments  smoke  cigarettes  and  drink  California 
claret  without  a  sign  of  trepidation. 

As  I  say,  that  is  pretty  near  all  you  know  of  the 
great,  marvellous,  multitudinous  town  you  live  in 
— a  city  full  of  strange  people,  of  strange  occupa 
tions,  of  strange  habits  of  life,  of  strange  contrasts 
of  wealth  and  poverty;  of  a  new  life  of  an  inde 
scribable  crudity,  and  of  an  old  life  that  breeds  to 
day  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  historic  past. 
Your  feet  have  never  strayed  in  the  side  paths 
where  you  might  have  learned  something  of  the  in 
finite  and  curious  strangeness  of  this  strange  city. 

But,  after  all,  this  is  neither  here  nor  there. 
You  have  accustomed  yourself  to  the  narrow  dor 
sal  strip  that  is  all  New  York  to  you.  Therein  are 
contained  the  means  of  meeting  your  every  need, 
and  of  gratifying  your  every  taste.  There  are 
your  shops,  your  clubs,  your  libraries,  your 
schools,  your  theatres,  your  art-galleries,  and  the 
houses  of  all  your  friends,  except  a  few  who  have 
ventured  a  block  or  so  outside  of  that  magic  line 
that  I  spoke  of  a  little  while  ago.  And  now  you 
are  not  only  going  to  cross  that  line  yourself,  but  to 
pass  the  fatal  river  beyond  it,  to  burn  your  boats 
behind  you,  and  to  settle  in  the  very  wilderness. 
And  you  ask  me  if  you  will  like  it ! 

No,  Modestus,  you  will  not.  You  have  made  up 
your  mind,  of  course,  to  the  tedium  of  the  two  rail 
way  journeys  every  weekday,  and  when  you  have 


A  LETTER  TO  TOWN  423 

made  friends  with  your  fellow-commuters,  you 
get  to  like  it,  for  your  morning  trip  in  will  take  the 
place  with  you  of  your  present  afternoon  call  at 
your  club.  And  you  are  pretty  sure  to  enjoy  the 
novelty  of  the  first  few  months.  You  have  moved 
out  in  the  spring,  and,  dulled  as  your  perceptions 
are  by  years  of  city  life,  you  cannot  fail  to  be 
astonished  and  thrilled,  and  perhaps  a  little  bit 
awed,  at  the  wonder  of  that  green  awakening. 
And  when  you  see  how  the  first  faint,  seemingly 
half-doubtful  promise  of  perfect  growth  is  ful 
filled  by  the  procession  of  the  months,  you  your 
self  will  be  moved  with  the  desire  to  work  this 
miracle,  and  to  make  plants  and  flowers  grow  at 
your  own  will.  You  will  begin  to  talk  of  what  you 
are  going  to  do  next  year — for  you  have  taken  a 
three  years'  lease,  I  trust — if  only  as  an  evidence 
of  good  faith.  You  will  lay  out  a  tract  for  your 
flower  garden  and  your  vegetable  garden,  and  you 
will  borrow  your  neighbor's  seed-catalogue,  and 
you  will  plan  out  such  a  garden  as  never  blossomed 
since  Eden. 

And  in  your  leisure  days,  of  course,  you  will 
enjoy  it  more  or  less.  You  will  sit  on  your  broad 
veranda  in  the  pleasant  mornings  and  listen  to  the 
wind  softly  brushing  the  tree-tops  to  and  fro,  and 
look  at  the  blue  sky  through  the  leaf -framed  spaces 
in  the  cool,  green  canopy  above  you;  and  as  you 
remember  the  cruel,  hot,  lifeless  days  of  summer 
in  your  town  house,  when  you  dragged  through  the 
weeks  of  work  that  separated  you  from  the  wife 
and  children  at  the  seaside  or  in  the  mountains — 


424  A  LETTER  TO  TOWN 

then,  Modestus,  you  must  look  upon  what  is  before 
you,  and  say :  it  is  good. 

It  is  true  that  you  can't  get  quite  used  to  the 
sensation  of  wearing  your  tennis  flannels  at  your 
own  domestic  breakfast  table,  and  you  cannot  help 
feeling  as  if  somebody  had  stolen  your  clothes,  and 
you  were  going  around  in  your  pajamas.  But 
presently  your  friend — for  of  course  you  have  fol 
lowed  the  trail  of  a  friend,  in  choosing  your  new 
abode — your  friend  drops  in  clad  likewise,  and  you 
take  the  children  and  start  off  for  a  stroll.  As  the 
pajama-feeling  wears  off,  you  become  quite  en 
thusiastic.  You  tell  your  friend  that  this  is  the 
life  that  you  always  wanted  to  lead;  that  a  man 
doesn't  really  live  in  the  city,  but  only  exists;  that 
it  is  a  luxury  to  breathe  such  air,  and  enjoy  the 
peaceful  calm  and  perfect  silence.  Away  inside 
of  you  something  says  that  this  is  humbug,  for,  the 
fact  is,  the  perfect  silence  strikes  you  as  some 
what  lonesome,  and  it  even  scares  you  a  little. 
Then  your  children  keep  running  up  to  you  with 
strange  plants  and  flowers,  and  asking  you  what 
they  are;  and  you  find  it  trying  on  the  nerves  to 
keep  up  the  pretence  of  parental  omniscience,  and 
yet  avoid  the  too-ready  corrections  of  your  friend. 

"Johnny- jumper!"  he  says,  scornfully,  when 
you  have  hazarded  a  guess  out  of  your  meagre  bo 
tanical  vocabulary :  " Why,  man,  that's  no  Johnny- 
jumper,  that's  a  wild  geranium."  Then  he  ad 
dresses  himself  to  the  other  inquiring  youngster : 
"No,  my  boy,  that's  not  a  chestnut;  that's  an 
acorn.  You  won't  get  chestnuts  till  the  fall,  and 


A  LETTEE  TO  TOWN  425 

then  yon  '11  get  them  off  the  chestnut  trees.  That 's 
an  oak." 

And  so  the  walk  is  not  altogether  pleasant  for 
you,  and  you  find  it  safest  to  confine  your  remarks 
on  country  life  to  generalizations  concerning  the 
air  and  the  silence. 

No,  Modestus,  do  not  think  for  a  moment  that  I 
am  making  game  of  you.  Your  friend  would  be 
no  more  at  home  at  the  uptown  end  of  your  little 
New  York  path  than  you  are  here  in  his  little 
town;  and  he  does  not  look  on  your  ignorance  of 
nature  as  sternly  as  you  would  look  upon  his  un- 
familiarity  with  your  familiar  landmarks.  For 
his  knowledge  has  grown  upon  him  so  naturally 
and  unconsciously,  that  he  hardly  esteems  it  of  any 
value. 

But  you  can  have  no  idea  of  the  tragicomical 
disadvantage  at  which  you  will  find  yourself  placed 
during  your  first  year  in  the  country — that  is,  the 
suburban  country.  You  know,  of  course,  when 
you  move  into  a  new  neighborhood  in  the  city  you 
must  expect  to  find  the  local  butcher  and  baker  and 
candlestick -maker  ready  to  fall  upon  you,  and  to 
tear  the  very  raiment  from  your  back,  until  they 
are  assured  that  you  are  a  solvent  permanency — 
and  you  have  learned  how  to  meet  and  repel  their 
attacks.  "When  you  find  that  the  same  thing  is 
done  in  the  country,  only  in  a  different  way,  which 
you  don't  in  the  least  understand,  you  will  begin  to 
experience  a  certain  feeling  of  discouragement. 
Then,  the  humorous  papers  have  taught  you  to 
look  upon  the  Suburban  Furnace  as  part  of  the 


426  A  LETTER  TO  TOWN 

machinery  or  property  of  a  merry  jest;  and  you 
will  be  shocked  to  discover  that  to  the  newcomer 
it  is  a  stern  and  cold  reality.  I  use  the  latter  ad 
jective  deliberately  and  advisedly.  There  will 
surely  come  an  awful  night  when  you  will  get  home 
from  New  York  with  Mrs.  Modestus  in  the  mid 
night  train,  too  tired  for  anything  but  a  drowsy 
chat  by  the  lingering  embers  of  the  library  fire 
over  the  festivities  of  the  evening.  You  will  open 
your  broad  hospitable  door,  and  enter  an  abode  of 
chill  and  darkness.  Your  long-slumbering  house 
hold  has  let  fires  and  lights  go  out ;  the  thermome 
ter  in  the  children's  room  stands  at  forty-five  de 
grees,  and  there  is  nothing  for  you  to  do  but  to  de 
scend  to  the  cellar,  arrayed  in  your  wedding  gar 
ments,  and  try  your  unskilful  best  to  coax  into 
feeble  circulation  a  small,  faintly  throbbing  heart 
of  fire  that  yet  glows  far  down  in  the  fire-pot's 
darksome  internals.  Then,  when  you  have  done 
what  you  can  at  the  unwonted  and  unwelcome  task, 
you  will  see,  by  the  feeble  candle-light,  that  your 
black  dress-coat  is  gray  with  fine  cinder  dust,  and 
that  your  hands  are  red  and  raw  from  the  handling 
of  heavy  implements  of  toil.  And  then  you  will 
think  of  city  home-comings  after  the  theatre  or  the 
ball;  of  the  quiet  half -hour  in  front  of  the  dying 
cannel;  of  the  short  cigar  and  the  little  nightcap, 
and  of  the  gentle  passage  bedward,  so  easy  in  that 
warm  and  slumberous  atmosphere  that  you  hardly 
know  how  you  have  passed  from  weariness  to 
peaceful  dreams.  And  there  will  come  to  your 
spirit  a  sudden  passion  of  humiliation  and  revolt 


A  LETTER  TO  TOWN  427 

that  will  make  you  say  to  yourself :  This  is  the  end ! 

But  you  know  perfectly  well  that  it  is  not  the 
end,  however  ardently  you  may  wish  that  it  was. 
There  still  remain  two  years  of  your  un-subletable 
lease;  and  you  set  yourself,  courageously  and 
firmly,  to  serving  out  the  rest  of  your  time.  You 
resolve,  as  a  good  prisoner,  to  make  the  best  of  it. 
You  set  to  work  to  apply  a  little  plain  common- 
sense  to  the  problem  of  the  furnace — and  find  it 
not  so  difficult  of  partial  solution  after  all.  You 
face  your  other  local  troubles  with  a  determination 
to  minimize  them  at  least.  You  resolve  to  check 
your  too  open  expressions  of  dissatisfaction  with 
the  life  you  are  leading.  You  hardly  know  why 
you  do  this,  but  you  have,  half -unconsciously,  read 
a  gentle  hint  in  the  faces  of  your  neighbors ;  and 
as  you  see  those  kindly  faces  gathering  oftener  and 
oftener  about  your  fire  as  the  winter  nights  go  on, 
it  may,  perhaps,  dawn  upon  your  mind  that  the  ex 
istence  you  were  so  quick  to  condemn  has  grown 
dear  to  some  of  them. 

But,  whether  you  know  it  or  not,  that  second 
year  in  the  suburban  house  is  a  crisis  and  turning- 
point  in  your  life,  for  it  will  make  of  you  either  a 
city  man  or  a  suburban,  and  it  will  surely  save  you 
from  being,  for  all  the  rest  of  your  days,  that  hide 
ous  betwixt-and-between  thing,  that  uncanny  crea 
tion  of  modern  days  of  rapid  transit,  who  fluctu 
ates  helplessly  between  one  town  and  another ;  be 
tween  town  and  city,  and  between  town  and  city 
again,  seeking  an  impossible  and  unattainable  per 
fection,  and  scattering  remonstrant  servant-maids 


428  A  LETTER  TO  TOWN 

and  disputed  bills  for  repairs  along  his  cheerless 
track. 

You  have  learned  that  the  miseries  of  country 
life  are  not  dealt  out  to  you  individually,  but  that 
they  belong  to  the  life,  just  as  the  troubles  you  fled 
from  belong  to  the  life  of  a  great  city.  Of  course, 
the  realization  of  this  fact  only  serves  to  make  you 
see  that  you  erred  in  making  so  radical  a  change  in 
the  current  of  your  life.  You  perceive  only  the 
more  clearly  that  as  soon  as  your  appointed  time  is 
up,  you  must  reestablish  yourself  in  urban  condi 
tions.  There  is  no  question  about  it ;  whatever  its 
merits  may  be — and  you  are  willing  to  concede  that 
they  are  many — it  is  obvious  that  country  life  does 
not  suit  you,  or  that  you  do  not  suit  country  life, 
one  or  the  other.  And  yet — somehow  incompre 
hensibly — the  understanding  that  you  have  only 
shifted  the  burden  you  bore  among  your  old  neigh 
bors  has  put  a  strangely  new  face  on  things,  and 
has  made  you  so  readily  tolerant  that  you  are 
really  a  little  surprised  at  yourself. 

The  winter  goes  by;  the  ever  welcome  glory  of 
the  spring  comes  back,  and  with  it  comes  the 
natural  human  longing  to  make  a  garden,  which  is 
really,  although  we  treat  it  lightly,  a  sort  of  humble 
first-cousin  to  the  love  of  children.  In  your  own 
breast  you  repress  this  weakness.  Why  taste  of  a 
pleasure  which  in  another  short  year  you  mean  to 
put  permanently  out  of  your  reach?  But  there  is 
no  resisting  the  entreaties  of  your  children,  nor 
your  wife's  ready  interest  in  their  schemes,  and 
you  send  for  Pat  Brannigan,  and  order  a  garden 


A  LETTER  TO  TOWN  429 

made.  Of  course,  it  is  only  for  the  children,  but  it 
is  strange  how  readily  a  desire  to  please  the  little 
ones  spreads  into  a  broader  benevolence.  When 
you  look  over  your  wife 's  list  of  plants  and  seeds, 
you  are  surprised  to  find  how  many  of  them  are 
perennials.  "They  will  please  the  next  tenants 
here,"  says  your  wife;  "think  how  nice  it  would 
have  been  for  us  to  find  some  flowers  all  already 
for  us,  when  we  came  here!"  This  may  possibly 
lead  you  to  reflecting  that  there  might  have  been 
something,  after  all,  in  your  original  idea  of  sup 
pressing  the  gardening  instinct. 

But  there,  after  a  while,  is  the  garden — f or  these 
stories  of  suburban  gardens  where  nothing  grows, 
are  all  nonsense.  True,  the  clematis  and  the 
moonflower  obstinately  refuse  to  clothe  your  cot 
with  beauty ;  the  tigridia  bulbs  rot  in  the  ground, 
and  your  beautiful  collection  of  irises  produces  a 
pitiful  pennyworth  of  bloom  to  an  intolerable 
quantity  of  leaves.  But  the  petunias  and  the 
sweet-williams,  and  the  balsams,  and  all  the  other 
ill-bred  and  obtrusive  flowers  leap  promptly  into 
life  and  vigor,  and  fight  each  other  for  the  owner 
ship  of  the  beds.  And  the  ever-faithful  and 
friendly  nasturtium  comes  early  and  stays  late, 
and  the  limp  morning-glory  may  always  be  counted 
upon  to  slouch  familiarly  over  everything  in  sight, 
window-blinds  preferred.  But,  bless  your  dear 
urban  soul,  what  do  you  know  about  the  relative 
values  of  flowers  f  When  Mrs.  Overtheway  brings 
your  wife  a  bunch  of  her  superbest  gladioli,  you 
complacently  return  the  compliment  with  a  half- 


430  A  LETTER  TO  TOWN 

bushel  of  magenta  petunias,  and  you  wonder  that 
she  does  not  show  more  enthusiasm  over  the  gift. 

In  fact,  during  the  course  of  the  summer  you 
have  grown  so  friendly  with  your  garden  that,  as 
you  wander  about  its  tangled  paths  in  the  late  fall 
days,  you  cannot  help  feeling  a  twinge  of  yearning 
pain  that  makes  you  tremble  to  think  what  weak 
ness  you  might  have  been  guilty  of  had  you  not 
already  burned  your  bridges  behind  you,  and  told 
the  house  agent  that  nothing  would  induce  you  to 
renew  the  lease  next  spring.  You  remember  how 
fully  and  carefully  you  explained  to  him  your  posi 
tion  in  the  matter.  With  a  glow  of  modest  pride 
you  recall  the  fact  that  you  stated  your  case  to  him 
so  convincingly,  that  he  had  to  agree  with  you  that 
a  city  life  was  the  only  life  you  and  your  family 
could  possibly  lead.  He  understood  fully  how 
much  you  liked  the  place  and  the  people,  and  how, 
if  this  were  only  so,  and  that  were  only  the  other 
way,  you  would  certainly  stay.  And  you  feel  if 
the  house  agent  agrees  with  you  against  his  own 
interest,  you  must  be  right  in  your  decision.  Ah, 
dear  Modestus!  You  know  little  enough  about 
flowers;  but  oh,  how  little,  little,  little  you  know 
about  suburban  house  agents ! 

Let  us  pass  lightly  over  the  third  winter.  It  is 
a  period  of  hesitation,  perplexity,  expectancy,  and 
general  awkwardness.  You  are,  and  you  are  not. 
You  belong  nowhere,  and  to  no  one.  You  have  re 
nounced  your  new  allegiance,  and  you  really  do  not 
know  when,  how,  or  at  what  point  you  are  going  to 
take  up  the  old  one  again.  And,  in  point  of  fact, 


A  LETTER  TO  TOWN  431 

you  do  not  regard  this  particular  prospect  with 
feelings  of  complete  satisfaction.  You  remember, 
with  a  troubled  conscience,  the  long  list  of  social 
connections  which  you  have  found  it  too  trouble 
some  to  keep  up  at  long  range.  I  say  you,  for  I  am 
quite  sure  that  Mrs.  Modestus  will  certify  me  that 
it  was  You  and  not  She,  who  first  declared  that  it 
was  practically  impossible  to  keep  on  going  to  the 
Smith's  dinners  or  the  Brown's  receptions.  You 
don't  know  this,  my  dear  Modestus,  but  I  assure 
you  that  you  may  take  it  for  granted.  You  re 
member  also  that  your  return  must  carry  with  it 
the  suggestion  of  the  ignominy  of  defeat,  and  you 
know  exactly  the  tone  of  kindly  contemptuous, 
mildly  assumed  superiority  with  which  your 
friends  will  welcome  you  back.  And  the  approach 
ing  severance  of  your  newer  ties  troubles  your 
mind  in  another  way.  Your  new  friends  do  not  try 
to  dissuade  you  from  going  (they  are  too  wise  in  a 
suburban  way  for  that),  but  they  say,  and  show  in 
a  hundred  ways,  that  they  are  sorry  to  think  of 
losing  you.  And  this  forbearance,  so  different 
from  what  you  have  to  expect  at  the  other  end  of 
your  moving,  reproaches  and  pains  while  it  touches 
your  heart.  These  people  were  all  strangers  to 
you  two  years  and  a  half  ago;  they  are  chance 
rather  than  chosen  companions.  And  yet,  in  this 
brief  space  of  time — filled  with  little  neighborly 
offices,  with  faithful  services  and  tender  sympa 
thies  in  hours  of  sickness,  and  perhaps  of  death, 
with  simple,  informal  companionship — you  have 
grown  into  a  closer  and  heartier  friendship  with 


432  A  LETTER  TO  TOWN 

them  than  you  have  ever  known  before,  save  with 
the  one  or  two  old  comrades  with  whose  love  your 
life  is  bound  up.  When  you  learned  to  leave  your 
broad  house-door  open  to  the  summer  airs,  you 
opened,  unconsciously,  another  door;  and  these 
friends  have  entered  in. 


It  is  a  sunny  Saturday  afternoon  in  early  April, 
but  not  exactly  an  April  afternoon,  rather  one  of 
those  precocious  days  of  delicious  warmth  and  full, 
summer-like  sunshine,  that  come  to  remind  us  that 
May  and  June  are  close  behind  the  spring  showers. 
You  and  Mrs.  Modestus  sit  on  the  top  step  of  your 
front  veranda,  just  as  you  sat  there  on  such  a  day, 
nearly  three  years  ago.  As  on  that  day,  you  are 
talking  of  the  future ;  but  you  are  in  a  very  differ 
ent  frame  of  mind  to-day.  In  a  few  short  weeks 
you  will  be  adrift  upon  a  sea  of  domestic  uncer 
tainty.  For  weeks  you  have  visited  the  noisy  city, 
hunting  the  proud  and  lofty  mansion  and  the  tor 
tuous  and  humiliating  flat,  and  it  has  all  come  to 
this — a  steam-heated  "  family-hotel, "  until  such 
time  when  you  can  find  summer  quarters ;  and  then, 
with  the  fall,  a  new  beginning  of  the  weary  search. 
And  then — and  then 

Coming  and  going  along  the  street,  your  friends 
and  neighbors  give  you  cheery  greeting,  to  which 
you  respond  somewhat  absent-mindedly.  You  can 
hear  the  voices  of  your  children  and  their  little 
neighbor-friends  playing  in  the  empty  garden  plot. 
Your  talk  flags.  You  do  not  know  just  what  you 


A  LETTER  TO  TOWN  433 

are  thinking  about;  still  less  do  you  know  what 
your  wife  is  thinking  about — but  you  know  that 
you  wish  the  children  would  stop  laughing,  and 
that  the  people  would  stop  going  by  and  nodding 
pleasantly. 

And  now  comes  one  who  does  not  go  by.  He 
turns  in  at  the  gate  and  walks  up  the  gravel  path. 
He  smiles  and  bows  at  you  as  if  the  whole  world 
were  sunshine — a  trim  little  figure,  dressed  with 
such  artistic  care  that  there  is  a  cheerfulness  in  the 
crease  of  his  trousers  and  suavity  in  his  very  shirt- 
front.  He  greets  Mrs.  Modestus  with  a  world  of 
courtesy,  and  then  he  sits  confidentially  down  by 
your  side  and  says:  "My  dear  sir,  I  am  come  to 
talk  a  little  business  with  you.'' 

No,  you  will  not  talk  business.  Your  mind  is 
firmly  made  up.  Nothing  will  induce  you  to  renew 
the  lease. 

"But,  my  dear  sir,"  he  says,  with  an  enthusiasm 
that  would  be  as  boisterous  as  an  ocean  wave,  if  it 
had  not  so  much  oil  on  its  surface:  "I  don't  want 
you  to  renew  the  lease.  I  have  a  much  better  plan 
than  that !  I  want  you  to  louy  the  house!" 

And  then  he  goes  on  to  tell  you  all  about  it ;  how 
the  estate  must  be  closed  up ;  how  the  house  may  be 
had  for  a  song ;  and  he  names  a  figure  so  small  that 
it  gives  you  two  separate  mental  shocks ;  first,  to 
realize  that  it  is  within  your  means ;  second,  to  find 
that  he  is  telling  the  truth. 

He  goes  on  talking  softly,  suggestively,  telling 
you  what  a  bargain  it  is,  telling  you  all  the  things 
you  have  put  out  of  your  mind  for  many  months ; 


434  A  LETTER  TO  TCTWN 

Idling  you — tolling  you  nothing,  and  well  he  knows 
it.  Three  years  of  life  under  that  roof  have  done 
his  pleading  for  him. 

Then  your  wife  suddenly  reaches  out  her  hand 
and  touches  you  furtively. 

"Oh,  buy  it,"  she  whispers,  huskily,  "if  you 
can."  And  then  she  gathers  up  her  skirts  and 
hurries  into  the  house. 

Then  a  little  later  you  are  all  in  the  library,  and 
you  have  signed  a  little  plain  strip  of  paper, 
headed  "Memorandum  of  Sale."  And  then  you 
and  the  agent  have  drunk  a  glass  of  wine  to  bind 
the  bargain,  and  then  the  agent  is  gone,  and  you 
and  your  wife  are  left  standing  there,  looking  at 
each  other  with  misty  eyes  and  questioning  smiles, 
happy  and  yet  doubtful  if  you  have  done  right  or 
wrong. 

But  what  does  it  matter,  my  dear  Modestus? 

For  you  could  not  help  yourselves. 


WAN  OEPT. 

tssssassc-- 

_   '"aresul     ct  to  immediate  recall. 

1?  J9°3  Oi. 


. 
(F7763slO)476B 


.General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


